Redstate

Cause you're one heck of a Monday Morning Quarterback.

So I guess that New Orleans should have evacuated everytime a hurricane threatened to hit the city.  Basically once or twice a year the city of New Orleans should evacuate because they MIGHT be hit by a hurricance.  Yeah ok.

One more time. 80% of the residents of New Orleans were evacuated.  Many, if not most, of those who remained were going to remain REGARDLESS of what the mayor or governor did.  You can show a pictures of a 100,000 buses but you need to have detailed planning and people to drive the buses.  

And of course you had to mention the shoot the looters meme.  Has it occurred to you that the BIGGEST problem that New Orleans had immediately after the hurricane WASN'T looters?   Has it occurred to you that even if the shoot the looters  policy was put in place there weren't any POLICE in the are to do the shooting.  

You can show a pictures of a 100,000 buses but you need to have detailed planning and people to drive the buses

If you are saying that there should have been detailed plans, then I think you are disagreeing with machiavel's post by emphatically agreeing with it.

Has it occurred to you that even if the shoot the looters  policy was put in place there weren't any POLICE in the are to do the shooting.

This touches on what my most recent diary was getting at. The failure of the NO police is something we need to understand and correct.

Not for partisan gain, but so that when disaster strikes other cities, fewer people will suffer or die.

Well, if this qualifies as armchair quarterbacking, I guess the progressive blog sites qualify as ESPN Sports Center.

In fact, Kos could be Lee Corso!

Joe Montana was pretty darn good on Sunday afternoons and Monday evenings, as well.

As to the armchair quarterbacking, I've already spoken on that.

FWIW, I would have expected better from Nagrin given his background and history - here's a good starting point on that (hat tip to "cs") but as I said in my diary, no one is ever going to confuse him with Rudy, are they.

I don't think Brendan Loy was Monday-morning quarterbacking when he called for an evacuation Friday night.

An 800% budget increase in flood control at the 11th hour would not have saved New Orleans. A military evacuation much earlier would have.

20% remaining behind is acceptable in Miami. But not New Orleans. Nagin knew this. This isn't a few shingles off the roof and a nice payout from the insurance company.

If you knew there was even a 10% chance of a nuclear bomb going off in your city tomorrow, would you stay?

I see that the RedState line is slowing changing from "It's an Act of God" to "Blame the Dems".  And here I've been reading all along at this site that things were going about as well as could be expected given that NOLA is, like, under sea level and was thus doomed anyway.

Also, you apparently haven't noticed that it's taken a week to get the National Guard sufficiently organized to respond.  I'm not sure how this available-on-a-moment's-notice-to-knock-on-doors scenario develops given what we've seen over the past several days.

If you are saying that there should have been detailed plans, then I think you are disagreeing with machiavel's post by emphatically agreeing with it.

The problem is that planning rarely works when faced with a catastrophe.   Regardless this sort of planning isn't done by the mayor or the governor or the President.  It is done by professional who try to build a plan that can best be followed.

This touches on what my most recent diary was getting at. The failure of the NO police is something we need to understand and correct.

Not for partisan gain, but so that when disaster strikes other cities, fewer people will suffer or die.

I'm all for studying to minimize the risk of the same problems happening again.  But the reality is that there will always been a brief period of lawlessness in situations like this.  

Uh... it's "Nagin", of course.

There will be a time for the settling of accounts, and that time is not now.

Hahahaha. I can't quote the complete negation of that sentiment in full because your diary was way too long to fit into a comment. "That time is not now" unless, apparently, the accounts to be settled are Democratic ones, eh? When Bush is attacked for not ensuring FEMA was manned by the competent or making sure federal response was coordinated, oh goodness the decency-free Democrats have gone too far, people are dying! But if there's a timeline to be constructed about Democratic malfeasance, well then, there's no finer time than now!

I personally don't think the bickering on either side is doing any damage to the relief efforts at all. I think it's probably helping to prod people along and it's hurting the feelings and political futures of those outside of NO city limits, but beyond that I'm skeptical of the "people are dying!" defense against criticism. Now I've been more critical of Bush than others -- and the federal response/plan is humiliating -- but there's no doubt Blanco hasn't stepped up and I don't know what the Senators have done.

That's probably the best analogy for Kos I can think of: far too excitable, wrong a lot, and looks like a fool even when he's right.

that the Mayor of ANY CITY has the ability to do the things you suggest.  

If Nagin KNEW that the storm was going to do exactly what it did 7 days prior to it hitting he STILL wouldn't have been able to get everyone out of New Orleans.  I wonder if he would have been able to get many more people than he did.

If you knew there was even a 10% chance of a nuclear bomb going off in your city tomorrow, would you stay?

Nope.  But I would have left New Orleans before the storm.  The problem is that there a LOT of people who WOULD stay even if there were a 10% chance of a nuclear bomb going off.  Some people would simply think it's hysteria and not a real threat.  Some people would fear not knowing where they are going.  And some others would believe that their entire life is gone if their house is gone so why leave?

The problem is that planning rarely works when faced with a catastrophe.   Regardless this sort of planning isn't done by the mayor or the governor or the President.  It is done by professional who try to build a plan that can best be followed

Plans rarely work exactly as detailed. But in general, they work to an extent. If your position is as it appears, namely that planning for catastrophes are an exercise in futility, I dissent. It is foolishness to not have such plans.

I used to work in a nuclear facility. Do you think it would be a good idea to not have emergency response plans for them, since in your view 'planning rarely works when faced with a catastrophe'?

And while I agree that I doubt the best emergency plan could have been personally developed by Blanco, Nagin, Bush, or any poltician, I think your point is basically irrelevant. Such professionals as you suggest would do so at the behest of and under contract with the government.

But the reality is that there will always been a brief period of lawlessness in situations like this

First, I do not think we have many examples to fall back upon to substantiate or refute that assertion.

Second, if one stipulates it to be true, then the salient detail is how to make the breif period more breif. And that is what emergency planning is all about.

it happens on the Left side as well.

I think it rings pretty hollow here considering how many diaries were written about how evil the Democrats were for making this a political football.

the Guard was not called up in advance.

There is no "RedState line" that I can see. Lots of different people post lots of different opinions. None of the lockstep conformity that you find on the left.

It's difficult to see how anyone can avoid concluding that the local government in LA messed up badly. Many people are getting around this by 1) attacking Bush and 2) reacting to criticism of Nagin and Blanco with appeals for "unity", suddenly forgetting their position in (1).

...the perfect be the enemy of the good. Since he could never have gotten everyone out, he is absolved from doing all he could to get as many out as would have gone if he had a plan for providing them the means.

Plans rarely work exactly as detailed. But in general, they work to an extent. If your position is as it appears, namely that planning for catastrophes are an exercise in futility, I dissent. It is foolishness to not have such plans

I did not that plans have no impact. But they rarely work as planned.  

New Orleans DID have plans.  But reality showed that these plans weren't properly fleshed out.

I work for a financial services company in New York.  Prior to 9/11 every FS company in the area had a disaster recovery plan.  And almost none of them worked.  Why?  Because no one expected the disaster that happened.  Doesn't mean that there weren't plans.  

Second, if one stipulates it to be true, then the salient detail is how to make the breif period more breif. And that is what emergency planning is all about.

I'm all for improving responsiveness.  

... that this has become a 'blame the Dems' argument. IMHO the blame lies squarely at the feet of the mayor. He is the elected official responsible for the safety and security of the city, not the Governor and certainly not the President. The fact that Nagin is a Dem is immaterial in this argument. Whoever is in charge of the city simply did not do their job.

Hoping that you don't get hit by "the big one" hardly constitutes a plan. The threat to New Orleans has been wll known since at least Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and philosophically since well before that. New Orleans flooded to an average depth of a meter after the 1915 hurricane and a average depth of 3 meters in Betsy. This is not a surprise

New Orleans satisfies the definition of a boat: a hole in the water surrounded in this case by levees and concrete walls. How anyone could allow this ship to sail without having a plan and without having "life preservers" for all those aboard is simply unconscienable. And going on the radio or TV after the ship sinks and blaming the Coast Guard for not making sure you had all the life jackets you need is simply nonsense.

1) I suspect that machiavel wrote this in part in response to the political potshots being lobbed from the other side.

2) I direct you to his comments about Sen. Landreiu. Perhaps what you are seeing as an attempt to play political football is, instead, something different (unless Sen. Landreiu has suddenly changed parties without me noticing).

has the federal response plan been "humiliating"?

I see this charge tossed around a lot, but never with any specific t back it up. What specifically has been inadequate about the Federal response?

The usual answer is to point out the probles in NO, and to ignore the fact that these problems are not due to any mistakes on the Federal level, but to mistakes on the local level. So please, without citing human suffering in NO, tell me what shortcomings you see in the Federal response to this hurricane.

20% remaining behind is acceptable in Miami. But not New Orleans. Nagin knew this. This isn't a few shingles off the roof and a nice payout from the insurance company.

If all you're saying is that Nagin should have issued the evacuation order earlier, I would probably agree.

But if you're going beyond that, as you seem to be with your comment that "Nagin knew" that 80% was not good enough, you'll need to elaborate.  Exactly what power did he have in your view to get more people out?  If he had issued the order 24 hours before, how would that have helped the people who didn't have the means to leave?

I concur with this:

But reality showed that these plans weren't properly fleshed out.

So, perhaps, you will agree that instead of Mayor Nagin getting on the radio and blasting the Presidential administration for their plans not having been sufficient, Mayor Nagin might do well to remember that his plans, and his efforts before hand, were not properly fleshed out?

why should there be all this discussion of whether the disaster plan was adequate or not? If individual people make poor decisions then the government at any level caannot be expected to somehow make everything better for them. Right?

According to Michael Medved, another problem with "federalizing" a State National Guard (maybe because a clueless Governor is using them ineffectively) is that once federalized, they can no longer operate as surrogate police. The laws don't allow federalized troops to do law enforcement.

And, another reason that many residents didn't evacuate, when they could have, is because it was the end of the month. They were waiting for first of the month welfare and public assistance checks. That, and they knew they'd be robbed blind by their "neighbors."

I don't know how this story is still going around. Pictures from NO show a city full of cars and buses. Have you seen the pictures of the parking lot packed with buses, now flooded?

The means to escape certainly existed, so the notion that "people could not escape" needs to be finally put to rest.

you can hear the leftists hyping up Nagin right now because he snapped.

Yes, snapped. That's what I call using so many swear words in an interview.

Real leaders don't rant and rave like moonbats.

I'd call it more of a "don't leave the field solely to the opposition" approach.  My preference would be not to get into any of this now, while there's work to be done.  

At the same time, it's hard to ignore the cheap shots being taken by the left, especially the more outrageous ones.  That the media simply repeats them, no matter how idiotic, gives them credence they don't deserve.

Anytime you want to check out of the cartoon world of "BushitlerMcChimpy", have at it & it'll stop.

There is no "RedState line" that I can see. Lots of different people post lots of different opinions.

So noted.  

It's difficult to see how anyone can avoid concluding that the local government in LA messed up badly.

Agreed.

Many people are getting around this by 1) attacking Bush and 2) reacting to criticism of Nagin and Blanco with appeals for "unity", suddenly forgetting their position in (1).

And, it seems, vice versa.

He's close to a Zell Miller Dem. He endorsed Jindal. He contributed to the President.

He's as close to a Republican you'll get in N.O. All of that's immaterial. He deserves whatever he gets.

Posse Comitatus Act.

Once under federal authority they can't exercise police power. I believe they can still detain and allow a civilian police officer to affect an arrest but the NOPD has been pretty much out of sight in regards to law enforcement.

Regarding this post as somehow being politically motivated, I think it is worth noting that Mayor Nagin donated to President Bush's campaign, and he endorsed Bobby Jindal over Katherine Blanco when they faced each other in the Gubernatorial race.

Don't expect us to constsntly sit around asking for national unity while your side describes this as "discouraging dissent" or cheearleading for the president. Don't expect us to take your cheapshots forever without responding. And don't whine about it when we do. If you cannot handle a fight, don't start one.

A priori assumptions that folks have watched TV at all the last few days are apparently invalid, I guess.

Here's one reason why. Here's another. Those first two are perhaps a little subtle. Here are some more that are clearer.

I'm not talking about local prevention I'm talking about post-disaster incompetence. FEMA -- "F" for federal -- has had a long time to work on effective disaster plans, to include stockpiles of food/water/medicine and a "plan B" for airdrops if roads were taken out via disaster or attack. They didn't. They had press conferences and drills. It's humiliating to have paid taxes for this. A lot of good work was done, mostly by the search and rescue crews. Hooray for the Coast Guard! But even the president acknowledges that this was, on the whole, unacceptable. Stop defending the post-disaster fiasco.

I'm not saying there weren't enough vehicles, but I'm speaking from the vantage point of the people who didn't have their own transportation.  They couldn't just steal a bus.

Would 24 hours have been enough to canvass the city and evacuate those remaining?  I have my doubts. The number of buses were not the issue - time was.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying that local authorities had their ducks in a row - far from it.  But the people of New Orleans have been let down by their city, state, and federal governments.  To blame the two under Dem control while letting the one under GOP control off the hook is ridiculous.

... would you, now?

1. I didn't start anything.
   
2. "He started it" is not an excuse that lets one keep the highground.

The planning for this was the responsiblity of the City, parish, and state emergency management agencies.

The food and medical supplies have been there since Tuesday. But they aren't much good if there aren't any roads going into the city.

As a note, there are no relief plans that call for "airdrops on roads". There simply aren't enough aircraft or parachutes to do that and that is the worst way to deliver supplies because it guarantees rioting and mayhem.

No one is defending the fiasco, but we are going to assist that credit is given where credit is due.

They were waiting for first of the month welfare and public assistance checks. That, and they knew they'd be robbed blind by their "neighbors."

Unbelievable.

He was talking about federal response, and how it was lacking. The diary already touched on local prevention.

I'm not of the opinion that making this political has any bearing on the response, except that it might help prod/shame some of the politicians/officials into action. Nagin, Blanco, Landrieu, Vitter, whoever. Doesn't matter. If they screwed up, if they were negligent, hit him hard now so that they push hard back in the form of aid, relief, and effort. If folks -- D or R -- were content with inaction and starvation and death before, maybe they'll care when their political lives are on the line.

Good try, though.

Why should I be?

Why were there not adequate supplies of food and water in the Superdome to keep people alive until help arrived from outside? It should have been known that it might take a few days for outside help to come in the aftermath of a major hurricane.

Your refusal to acknowlege the blindingly obvious maitakes made in NO is downright bizarre.

I also note that I specifically asked for examples outside of NO, and you either did not see what I wrote, or ignored it, or could not find any of the extensive FEMA problems which you insist exist.

...I know it guarantees rioting and mayhem. That's why I also posted some paratroopers who could be dropped to keep order when the supplies got dropped. I thought of everything! And not enough planes? Not enough parachutes? C'mon. They do it overseas, they have drills over here, maybe no one thought of putting it in the plans but I have a hard time believing it's impossible, and I'm paying them to be creative, intelligent, and most importantly to -- to use your example -- make sure there are enough parachutes, supplies, and planes in a hangar somewhere in Nebraska.

Basically, what would've happened if this had been a nuke attack on this city or others? If there'd been no evacuation? If there'd been radiation? With chaos in the streets, with the roads toppled over, with fires burning, with people needing to be rescued, what would have been done? That's my question, that's the spring of my outrage and humiliation.

This was better than that nuke scenario and it still took 5 days for meaningful non-rescue actions to begin to have effects. If there's an actual attack or attacks on this country then cities full of people are going to die because the FEMA end of Homeland Security have clearly not done their jobs. No one will come in and save them in time, they will dehydrate to death while groups of FEMA officials converse in a desultory manner about God knows what in NoVA. Fiasco.

people up.

Many of them opted to not get on board.

I do not know how many buses were involved, or when they ceased to offer the service, but there were buses getting people out of the area.

...what are you talking about? NO locally had huge problems, but the diary touched on that. I will note that apparently in the Superdome for a few days they had 2-9 oz bottles of water for each person and a choice of box meals of Jambalaya, Spaghetti, or Chicken something twice a day. Why examples outside of NO? I didn't understand that in your first post and I don't understand it now. NO is where the problems that require extraordinary means are, and attempts to relocate the debate over gov't stupidity are ridiculous. If you're saying that FEMA can handle the easier stuff but flops when it matters the most, I'll have to grant you that point but argue its meaningfulness.

"If folks -- D or R -- were content with inaction and starvation and death .."

Any evidence that anyone feels that way? Any evidence that everything that can be done is not being done?

People die in hurricanes. Even Americans.

I have no illusions that government can protect us from all the bad things that the world can throw at us. Life is not a movie. Sometimes bad things just happen, and there is no evil CIA plot or sinister corporation behind it all.

Plans cover a certain set of circumstances. Time spent on a plan is often cut short when you start reaching into unlikely situations - this is done to save money.

The disaster recovery plans in New York prior to 9/11 didn't cover what at the time was unthinkable. Someone cut short the time and money needed to create a plan that would cover that disaster - because it seemed unlikely, or it wasn't covered because no one thought a disaster of that nature or magnitude would happen.

The situation in New Orleans was very plausable, there seems to be many warnings, so this comparison is not that great in my view.

I have heard arguments that there was not enough time to fix levys that broke. I would suggest that someone  dropped the ball and they never should have reached their weak state. Just like fixing cracks takes money, finding cracks also takes money.

Plans are the same way. This disaster plan is obviously weak and has cracks. However, given that this disaster could be predicted, there should be no excuse. Someone dropped the ball. Someone did not spend the correct amount of money on the situation. Obviously the people were not educated on the matter, the police are unprepared and so on.

governor, not the feds.  

I do think it is a good question though.

There simply aren't enough aircraft or parachutes to do that and that is the worst way to deliver supplies because it guarantees rioting and mayhem.

Apparently, that's not much different from what's actually happening:

A little while later, we heard the thump-thump-thump of a helicopter and a Black Hawk dropped from the gray sky into the parking lot. The mob rushed the copter, swarming it before it even had a chance to land.

The soldiers inside opened the doors and pushed out cases of water and boxes of MREs - meals ready to eat. People pushed. People yelled. The old folks and kids grabbed what they could. The young men made out best, though some were willing to share their bounty. Others just kept what they had claimed and shouldered their way through the crowd.

...

Three minutes after landing, the copter lifted off and rose into the air.

... I don't care what party he belongs to or what party philosophy he accepts. He reportedly did a radio interview in which he blasted Blanco and Bush for not sitting together and "figuring out what do do." But at no time did he ever say "we didn't order the evacuation early enough", or "we didn't do the things we should have done." All he could do was lash out at others for failing to solve the problem.

I will cut him some slack because I'm sure he is exhausted and disheartened. But he is the official responsible for the safety and security of the city and the residents. He controls the people who didn't keep all the pumps in working order. He controls the police that left their post and did their own share of looting; this is not to criticize the entire NOPD but clearly he tolerated an environment in which those people were kept on the job.

I don't care what party he subscribes to. He did not do his job and now he has nothing but criticism for people not doing things for whaich they were not responsible. Shameful.

is out of line.

I didn't know Americans could die in hurricanes. That was my entire point and not just a straw man you erected. So, proven wrong, I guess I'll go now. Americans can die in hurricanes! Learn something new every day. Thanks.

The drops overseas have been for very small numbers of people in very isolated areas. You're talking about something on the order of 100,000 people being fed at least daily. If you just dropped all the food for say a week at one time do have any idea of the sheer bulk you're looking at?

As a paratrooper I can tell you no one in his right mind is going to order a jump into NO. My gosh, landing on roofs, powerlines, light poles can you imagine the broken bones? And can you imagine landing in 20 ft of water and having your parachute follow you in? The technical term is called "drowning".

correct and many people have noted that this is not a good way of delivering food. Imagine this scenario multiplied by a factor of 10.

1. Could you provide a link to that?  
   
2. That's a point in Nagin's favor, as far as I can tell.

He donated money to the Bush/Cheney 2000 campaign, he endorsed Bobby Jindal (who probably would have done a better job than Blanco in this situation, since he has more managerial experience). I thought that suggested he had conservative credentials. Now that he has become a hysterical shill for the left I wonder if he only wanted to support Republicans because he knew the momentum in his state was shifting to the right, and now he thinks the momentum is shifting back in the other direction.

If FEMA is messed up, then we should see evidence of it across the entire area hit be the hurricane.

If these problems are in NO, then it idicates that the problems are with the first responders in NO.

I am not saying that FEMA cannot handle the harder stuff. The role of handling things until the Feds arrive falls to the "first responders" on whom so much money was spent over the last few years. The "first responders" are not FEMA.

Your obsession with FEMA contines to baffle me. You have still been unable to specify what exactly you think they could have done that they have not done. The 82nd Airborne cannot drop into the city withour a request from the mayor and governor, which has still not been made to my knowlege.

There is no escaping the point that I and others have been making. The problems in NO are due to mistakes made by the locals, not FEMA. The Federal government is not some fairy godmother that can come in with a magic wand and make everything better.

There are sections of NO above water. I understand it would be risky regardless. Helicopters could bring in the troops. Whatever. I have no expertise at all, I'm tossing out ideas, I accept that some of them are clueless and unworkable.

What I don't accept is that all of them are.

And you don't have to feed/water 100k of them every day. It's about subsistence and you don't have to drop 3-squares a day plus 8 glasses of water. Probably just water would do in this situation.

What's going to happen when there's a malicious attack with no evacuation order? Did FEMA think they had this scenario under control, did they not care, or have they concluded that it'd be impossible to save such a city and have thus given up on planning/stockpiling for that event? I just want to know to what degree the response here represents FEMA's acumen for both post-disaster and post-attack planning and coordination.

No reply, flyerhawk?

Nagin is a pitiful mayor, and New Orleans has always been a lawless place under his leadership.

And yes, I know this for a fact.

"There is no escaping the point that I and others have been making. The problems in NO are due to mistakes made by the locals, not FEMA. The Federal government is not some fairy godmother that can come in with a magic wand and make everything better."

I agree there are many mistakes made by the local gov't. I never said the feds were a fairy godmother, so we're in agreement again! I said I felt humiliated that their plans were deficient/non-existent after all the time they've had.

...Why were there not adequate supplies of food and water in the Superdome to keep people alive until help arrived ...

Because it looks like the came up with the idea of using the Superdome on the spur of the moment --- someone was sitting on the can and suddenly had a revelation. And then they came up with the idea to use the Superdome. To an outside observer it most certainly does not look like there was ever any plan to use this facility until a few hours before it happened. The evidence for this is that there were no prepositioned suppplies of food, water, bedding, no toilet facilities, nothing but free seats on the 50 yard line.

based on the comments you have made, to recognize that yes, Americans can die in hurricanes.

The devastation in Biloxi, Gulfport, Bay St. Louis and along the Mississippi coast is just as great as in parts of New Orleans. And yet there is little looting, little lawlessness, and few complaints about the Federal response.

We are dealing with a whole host of issues that are NOLA-specific. The Feds didn't cause them, but it looks like they'll have to be the ones to clean them up.

So, perhaps, you will agree that instead of Mayor Nagin getting on the radio and blasting the Presidential administration for their plans not having been sufficient, Mayor Nagin might do well to remember that his plans, and his efforts before hand, were not properly fleshed out

I know very little about Nagin.  But I think that we should give ANYONE in his situation a little slack.  

I suspect that Nagin is more concerned his city and citizens than his political career right now.  

Truth be told I think that disasters such as this are EXACTLY why we have a FEMA because local authorities usually don't have the resources to handle this kind of problem.  

is that the buses were taking people to the Superdome, and not out of the city.  I admit this is based on anecdotal evidence, but I suspect anecdotal evidence is all anyone has at this point.

But this is something to think about: I have seen a lot of bloggers pointing out the school buses sat idle instead of shuttling poor people out of the city before the hurricane struck, but none have asked the question: where would they have gone?  This is, in my opinion, another area in which the planning broke down.

Saying that it was the responsiblity of the local and state governments/agencies to plan for this seems ridiculous.  This was not a local event, nor was it even confined to one state.  Everyone saw the same footage of the hurricane bearing down on the gulf coast, and everyone knew the risk to NO as well as other low-lying areas.  

Why wasn't FEMA pre-positioning supplies, and doing contingency planning?  Why didn't HS use some of the huge budget that was supposed to be used to protect the homeland to organize transportation for people who had none?  This was/is a threat to our national security, and it required a national response to that threat.

Let's face it folks, our leaders took their eyes off the ball.  DoHS built a modern day Maginot Line (airport security) to protect us, and mother nature has gone around it like the Germans did to the French.

Do you think the Federal government should take over the role of managing the response to hurricanes in all the cities in the US?

Or should it continue to be a responsibility of the local government?

Or some third way, a compromise between the two?

As best I can tell, you are upset that the Feds did not prevent the locals from screwing up.

that New Orleans is the largest city in the region by far might have something to do with this?  

Biloxi has 50,000 people.  New Orleans is nearly 20X that big.

If a disaster of this magnitude were to hit NYC there would be MILLIONS of people dead and I suspect that NYC has the most advanced disaster response planning of any city in the country.

let's consider it.

8 glasses of water (12-oz glasses)for 100,000 people is 9.6 million ounces (or 600,000 lbs of water per day, exclusive of packaging. If you assume 5% of the water weight is package, probably lowball, then you're looking at 630,000 lbs of water per day.

Driving the stuff in is the only logical way to do it. I haven't seen any transportation reports on what happened to the road network but they were reporting 80% of the city underwater.

The Post reported today that no one had ever developed a contingency plan for a hurricane with a breached levee.

I first suspected this would be badly bungled when they announced the Superdome as a shelter. For one thing, how could they be sure that roof would survive the 170mph winds (indeed part of it caved in -- when NO was "spared the worst").

OTOH, those people in there are lucky to be alive.

... the non-PC assertion that these folks were waiting for their checks or the fact that that they were waiting for their checks?

I have no doubt that large numbers of the people who are involved are welfare and public assistance recipients (many of them came from the "projects" by their own admission.) You might not like this fact but that doesn't change it. And saying it may not be PC but that also doesn't change the fact.

The writer did not make a value judgment about what or why they were waiting for their checks, simply that they were waiting --- because that's what people dependent on welfare do.

the supplies were prepositioned by FEMA. They have been on site since Tuesday and haven't been able to get into NO.

Saying the states don't have the primary responsibility is counterfactual. Orleans Parish, New Orleans, and Louisiana all have emergency management agencies. That is where the contingency plans are made. Now in Washington.

The question is why were there no supplies prepositioned in the stadium and why did the NOPD concede control of the sole shelter to gangs?

If your people and family were dying YOU WOULD do the same.

New Orleans

FEMA has an annual budget of around $6.5 Billion.  The LA annual budget for the entire state is 17 Billion.

They operate on different levels.  The reason we have FEMA is because it pools the resources across our country to help a local area that is overwhelmed by disaster.

Emotions are running high. I have family there, not all of whom are yet accounted for. Back off from the personal shots. Now.

And I think watching dead bodies fall 1,000 feet would have been cause.

Leadership matters.

I present to you Berlin circa 1948.  

I'm not suggesting that an airdrop would have worked in NOLA but it certainly can be done.

tens of thousands dead,

1 million displaced

...

If a Cat 5 hurricane hit NYC, it would be a complete disaster, with probably hundreds of thousands of dead.

But I'm not sure what point you are making. Hurricans are big destructive events. People have gotten into the habit over the last few years of viewing them as entertainment - hopefully that will stop now.

In their wildest dreams, Al Queda will never have the destructive power of a major hurricane, or earthquake for that matter. If some people have been under the impression that America is, or can be made, immune to natural disaster, then they need to wake up.

The death toll here will probably be in the low tens of thousands. A similar storm hitting China for example would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, even millions.

It would be tens of times bigger, not one hundred times.

And that assumes a 1:1 connection in terms of only deaths and displacements.

It is helping a local area overwhelmed by disaster.

Some people, however, seem to be suggesting that FEMA can somehow prevent disasters. That is not its role.

... they "thought" the Superdome could handle the stress. They thought "this" and they thought "that" and they thought a lot of things. And then they "hoped" they wouldn't get hit.

But some of the things they knew should have caused them a lack of sleep;

• the levees were designed to a Cat 3 storm and there is a Cat 5 bearing down on them;
• many of the pumps were electrically operated and there was a Cat 5 storm bearing down on them --- a storm cable of knocking down transmission towers; not lines, the whole d*mn tower (the eyewall of Andrew passed about 5 miles south of my house, right down a line of 250KV transmission lines. The reinforced concrete "poles" holding these lines are 30 inches square and were snapped like toothpicks.)
• several of the diesel operated pumps were reportedly out of service for parts and there is a Cat 5 storm bearing down on them;

Don't sound like much of a plan to me, but what do I know.

Paratroopers are basically trained to kill people as quickly and as efficiently and in whatever quantity as necessary upon hitting the ground. Not organize food lines.

few injuries and a handful of buildings

Here in New Orleans and across the country there will be unemployment

citizen displacement

high gas prices

etc etc

OH and No other country to blame and bomb and release our STRESS

There were no airdrops in the Berlin Airlift. And Berlin was not under water.

OH and No other country to blame and bomb and release our STRESS

Was it simply impossible for you to avoid dropping this bit of cr*p into the conversation. You couldnt't resist?

So you are saying that it's impossible to support people by airdrop even for a few days.  This means that if my city had a biological or nuclear event and no one from the outside could come in on the ground with supplies for a few days, that the feds shouldn't/couldn't airdrop the survivors food and water?

'Cause that is a scenario that people around here are worried about, since we live in the shadow of a major nuclear facility.  And I can tell you that folks around here, Republicans included, are dismayed by the fed's response in New Orleans.  Humiliated is not too strong a word, but frightened might be more apt.

than no food or water at all?

What am I missing?

I understand your emotions running high. But cut the silliness right now.

The logistics simply don't exist. Although the danger in a biological warfare or chem warfare attack can be handled, and isn't remotely like losing all the roads.

A nuclear attack response would depend on the nature of the attack.

Dead soldiers, dead innocents, and an even more out of control situation with only the strong having the food and water.

That's worse.

If an attack made an area a bio-hazard and no one could get in or out; at least for some sort of a quarantine period - you would effectively lose your roads.

If an airdrop isn't the solution to such a situation, what is?  Aren't there people whose job it is to imagine such scenarios and plan for them?  Do we really not have any plans that contemplate such possibilities?  

We have suits and special tanks and bulldozers, no, I'm not making that up, to handle getting into and out of biohazard zones. That can be handled. The folks at the CDC even have plans and whatnot. My brother, before he went into epidemiology, wanted to drive one of the tanks.

Airdrops might work if you have the right kind of environs. New Orleans is, God as my witness no pun, the perfect storm. No roads, no airport, no open areas, no way to protect the open areas for drops, no harbors available (in the short run). Most other cities would have a different set of options and problems.

"If an airdrop isn't the solution to such a situation, what is?" That would be you. Do you have sufficient food, water, shelter in the form of tents/sleeping bags/spare clothes and firearms to sustain and protect you and your family for at least two weeks?

after 9/11?

Well there really are a few things everyone should keep about the house.  In a duffle bag or a backpack or some other device for transporting objects.

Then if you are forced out of your home to go sleep in the Superdome for a few days and there is no running water, electricity, etc.  You and your family will be a bit more comfortable for a few days.

http://www.avertdisasters.org/html/72_hour.html

Extra water never hurts.  Obviously you can't drag 100 gallons of water around a flooded city but if you're sitting at home waiting for the anthrax spores or whatever to settle a few extra gallons can come in handy.

The great thing is all that stuff is just as useful after a hurricane, tornado, ice storm, blizzard,....

It's 72 hours.

That's how long you absolutely have to be able to survive by yourself.  After that somebody should be coming to give you a hand.

And that's why this catastrophe is such a [...]!

FEMA and company should be all over this by now.  

your neighbors.  They shouldn't shoot at the nice people from FEMA and the local authorities as the come to evacuate you or otherwise lend assistance.

You might want to coordinate on that with them beforehand.

1) A nuclear attack would not cause the loss of roads we are seeing in Katrina. A nuclear attack would be very localised, with eveything outside the zone of destruction being untouched.

Katrina cut comunications across thousands of square miles.

2. Pre-positioning of supplies is the solution. Have adequate supplies of food, water, and medicine to cover the period until ourside help can arrive. That will probably be a day or two. This also means that you as a citizen need to keep some emergency supplies on hand.
   
3. Bear in mind that a major hurricane causes more destruction over a wider area the anything a terrorist attack could ever hope to cause.
   
4. Accept that nobody and nothing can make life safe. Natural disasters happen, and they kill people. We try to mimimise the number killed, and to shorten the recovery time needed afterwards. But there is no prevention. People need to have sensible expectations about these things.

I'd note that it is now abour three days since NO flooded. Many people keep acting like it flooded Monday.

1 - it is unreasonable to expect local and state emergency response to be sufficient for a disaster of this magnitude.  That is why we have FEMA.  So to place blame on local and state officials for not planning well enough is a bit absurd.  State and local governments simply don't have sufficient resources.

2 - There's no question more could have been done and it could have been done faster.  If that is not the case, God help us if there is ever a nuclear or biological attack in the U.S.

3 - This shouldn't be about blame, it should be about trying to understand why we didn't have a proper response and how we can be sure to have better planning the next time we have a catastrophic event.  I'm just sad that we didn't seem to learn enough from 9-11 when it comes to emergency response needs.

That's pretty much a guaranteed disaster wherever it hits.  And I've read at least 8 articles on the fact that such a storm would sink NO in ten feet of water with up to 100,000 people dead or trapped in the city.

They should have been there in full glory yesterday.

good question.  you post things that imply faulty thinking on the part of those who tried to provide peace, shelter and safety.

what you and many others have failed to acknowledge is that this was a disaster, one that even the best science could not go toe to toe with.  in those cases, people die, and terrible things happen.  so be it.

when can we start to look at what positive things have occurred?  while mistakes were made, aren't many of the things that have happened worth noting?  we saved 1000's of lives, and did it under the gun.  people in the superdome were bitc*ing about eating cold mre's...!  can we all believe this?

i'm willing to deal with the mistakes made, by everyone, because there was no script for this.  if you think there should have been, run for office.

this attitude of "Noah, why didn't you build a bigger ship" is a joke.

they're here now.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.impact/index.html

1. State and local officials have the duty to plan for possible disasters in their own localities. FEMA exists to help them after a disaster takes place. That is exactly what it is doing. But the problems we are seeing here are largely due to failures at the first responder level. Failure to hold state and local officials responsible is what is absurd.
   
2. A nuclear or biological attack would not have the destructive power of a Cat 5 hurricane. It would not affect an area covering thousands of square miles. I don't know why people imagine otherwise. This is simply wrong.
   
3. From what I have seen, we have have had the proper response, in most places and at most levels. The city of New Orleans seems to have been a major league screwup, but very few people seem willing to point the finger at them for some reason.

1 - No question state and local officials have a duty to plan for possible disasters and I have no doubt there were screw-ups on that end.  However, the fact remains that state and local (especially local) governments simply do not have the resources necessary to properly prepare for or respond to a disaster of this magnitude.

2 - A nuclear attack would certainly effect an area the size of New Orleans... here we seem unable to properly respond even in that city.  With radiation issues, etc. the effects could be quite widespread.  As for a biological attack, it would totally depend on the amount and type of biological agent and how it was distributed.  In any case, I think the point standas that the response at all levels to Katrina raises serious concerns about a response to nuclear or biological attack.

3 - I'm not really interested in placing blame anywhere at the moment. I'm trying to understand what we can learn from this.  I think given the enormity of the situation, it would be unreasonable in the future to expect that state and local governments are our best option for emergency reponse to catastrophic events.  Whoever takes the blame in this instance, I hope we can build a better federal response system for future catastrophes.

"the fact remains that state and local (especially local) governments simply do not have the resources necessary to properly prepare for or respond to a disaster of this magnitude."

Simply untrue. What elaborate and expensive preparation do you think is reqired in planning to evacuate a city of 500,000? What specific resources does the federal government have that the locals do not have in preparing for this?

"A nuclear attack would certainly effect an area the size of New Orleans... here we seem unable to properly respond even in that city."

Mew Orleans is a disaster area surrounded by a much larger disaster area. One that is understood, the difficulty in getting supplies in and people out becomes much clearer.

"In any case, I think the point standas that the response at all levels to Katrina raises serious concerns about a response to nuclear or biological attack."

You are free to think what you like, but that is an opinion not backed up by any facts or even argument. What, in you view, would be an acceptable disaster response to a nuclear attack on an American city?

"it would be unreasonable in the future to expect that state and local governments are our best option for emergency reponse to catastrophic events."

Nobody has said that the Federal government should not play a role in disaster recovery. You appear to be suggesting something more than that, that the Feds should have taken charge of New Orleans before the hurricane hit. Is that in fact what you are saying?

If states and localities do not have the resources to respond to the unique situations that can occur within their borders, how could the federal government have the resources to respond to unique situations that can occur in all of the different states?

Sure, there might be some overlap. But by and large, what you need to deal with a flood is different than what you need to deal with wildfires is different than what you need to deal with tornadoes is different than what you need to deal with mudslides is different than what you need to deal with volcano eruptions.

It is up to localities and states to prepare, and to have plans for utilizing what the feds have. The feds cannot and should not be developing plans for each state. The state has first response responsibility, relying on aid from the feds when it can be arranged logistically.

But it may be that the buses were going to the superdome-the poster below says.  Either way the superdome, even with its problems is still better than being underwater or on your roof, because your house is flooded to the ceiling.

mandatory evacuations long before 24 hours was done.

This was probably the biggest mistake and the feds nor FEMA have any control over when mandatory evacuations should go out.

When I lived in hurricane prone areas, every Spring the hurricane safety commercials and flyers would start.

They had a list of supplies needed, and they recommended at least a three day supply per person.  So 72 hours before rescue/restortation of services is part of the hurricane safety literature.  Obviously somebody at some point figured out that it often takes days after the hurricane hits.

But I am willing to guess that many of the people who stayed in NO didn't bother to create a hurricane safety hoard, just in case-I know plenty of people who never bothered.

a welfare check do AFTER the storm ravaged the city, assumming, as we all did, that the worst would pass with Katrina.  

My focus was primarily on the response to a disaster and yours appears to be primarily on preparation for an impending disaster.

The federal response here is clearly deficient.  Republicans say so, Democrats say so, Bush says so...it's not a political statement.  If we don't recognize that, and instead simply explain away all the problems we're having, then the next time something like this happens we won't have learned anything.

FEMA isn't having problems like this in other areas.

And Florida got smacked four times last year, and FEMA didn't struggle.

FEMA has its problems, but the #1 problem here is that people didn't leave the city, the mandatory evacuation was announced too late, and there was no way to get that many people out of the city.

Most cities in hurricane areas can have stragglers stay behind, and probably not lose too many lives.  NO is below sea level, once the levee is breached, the city becomes essentially a giant bathtub-people staying behind in NO is essentially risking almost certain death, if the levee is breached.

NO relied too much on man made levees and luck that nothing bad would happen.  The city gambled and lost.

write the plan, they do not set policy for the locals, and they do not determine things like when evacuation orders should be given.  They are there to provide the assistance the locals ask for, not write the plan for them.

The federal government has far more money and access to physical resources and manpower.

I think in time your argument will actually implicate the federal government here.  From what I understand the local officials had been requesting additional funds for work on the levees for years.  The federal government cut those funds.

Finally, there is an logical problem with relying primarly on local governments to respond to disaster like this.  Those governments are often incapacitated by the disaster themselves.  I would hope the federal government would view its role as to respond in such situations.

a cat 5/4 hurricane hits tp evacuate is idiotic.  You can't evacuate a city that size in 24 hours.

Stragglers in a city above sea level probably can survive, but when the city is below sea level, having stragglers may mean their death sentence.

"The federal response here is clearly deficient.  Republicans say so, Democrats say so, Bush says so...it's not a political statement."  

Of course it is a political statememt. The federal response was fine, it was the local response that was a joke. Bush, the Democrats and the republicans will all say the buck stops with the Feds, simply so that it looks like they are not shirking responsibility. That is a political act.

The facts are what they are, and they are that the local response was criminally negligent.

If I am wrong, then you should have no problem in pointing out exactly how the federal response was deficient. I've asked this question repeatedly here, and am still waiting for someone to even attempt a reply.

were involved and over what period of time? And why airdrop when you can drive. Quite honestly your comment is just ridiculous.

done is say that airdropping supplies is the least efficient and least effective way of delivering supplies.

You can supply a few people, like cut off hikers or a small town, but when you get into the thousands the sheer weight and bulk overwhelm the delivery.

Not only that, but when the supplies hit the ground they won't have people to hand them out which inevitably results, in the absence of social controls, in riot/mayhem and the biggest and strongest hoarding supplies.

Your first preference is always ship/barge. Second is train. Then road. When all else fails, air.

if the area is so contaminated that relief workers wouldn't be safe then the people inside the area have problems food and water aren't going to solve.

If it is bio, there are sufficient vaccines for first responders unless the bio hazard is some boutique germ deliberately engineered for an attack. But with the one's you think about: small pox, flu, anthrax, etc. there are either prophylaxis or protective gear for first responders.

"The federal government has far more money and access to physical resources and manpower."

They would need far more money, if they had to handle each and every state's unique problems!

Each state is, and always shall be, required to handle first response. They must be, because they know the area, and they are where the area is.

The feds can come in later, but even then it should be coordinated by the locals, who again know the area, and are where the area is.

in making a totally groundless assertion such as that?  It is an attempt to disparage those who didn't evacuate.  

I won't go further than but you can't simply pass off every objectionable comment as being non-PC.

One... are you saying you approve of public funds being used to move and shelter people with no vehicles or money for their own shelter, and with medical problems making it difficult/dangerous for them to move?

Do you support the type of social infrastructure that could avoid this sort of crisis?

Two... you don't think defunding the levy had anything to do with it failing?

and you make a lot of guesses... a few choice killings would not chill the looting!  There are not enough officers.

They are not in communication with each other.

Their vehicles and police stations are under water.

There is no reason to waste breath on this blame unless we first figure out what the governments responsibility even IS.

Many on the right seem to think, hey, it was their responsibility to get out... they made a bad decision they have to live with.

What are we arguing about if that's the case?  Nothing.  Everything is going as it must... some people didn't think they could leave, that's that.

So if we are going to have an analysis to track the blame... we'll have to know what we are blaming.  It sounds like you accept the liberal position that whatever the details are, the GOVERNMENT had the responsibility to help those unable to help themselves... a tricky admission for conservatives, no?

a lot of this.

We know, for instance, that the section of the levee that collapsed was a section that had been upgraded.

We know that 20% of the NOPD resigned in the past 3 days. As a subset of that we know that there should have been more officers on duty after the storm than on a usual day by the simple expedient of requiring overtime rather than working 3 shifts. And if there were two few officers, well that is a funding decision that was made in NO.

We know that the police cars that are underwater are there for no good reason other than no one decided to drive them to an area above sea level because the flooding happened fairly slowly.

We know that money has been spent in NO for emergency communications. What we don't know is why it didn't work.

So while not blaming anyone, we know enough to start making some reasoned judgments.

...you started by asking "One... are you saying you approve of public funds being used to move and shelter people with no vehicles or money for their own shelter, and with medical problems making it difficult/dangerous for them to move?"

I would like you to go to Machiavel's post, and find any and all passages that could, in any reasonable reading, lead to the conclusions you are asking about.

If you can do that, then I will try to take your post and questions seriously. Right now I am very skeptical that you can.

.... the people who waited around.

My eyes must be going buggy or my dyslexia is getting worse than I realize. I totally misread your comment. In the words of Gilda Radner--- "nevermind."

... asking exactly what the write found "out of line" about the previous assertion. People stayed around waiting for their checks because that's the way it is --- people in their economic situation may think they have no choice or that it won't be that bad or whatever.

But the writer objected to an assertion that they stuck around for their checks and it appeared to me that he found it objectionable to say so i.e. racist.

First off, conservatives do not believe in ZERO government.  Only anarcholibertarians hold that position.  There are some things that are uniquely suited to government control -- such as the enforcement of law and order during disasters.

Second, the Army Corps of Engineers has already reported that the levee that failed WAS already upgraded to its full design rating.  Increased funding would have allowed STUDIES to commence concerning the feasibility of increasing the design rating from Cat-3 to Cat-4/5, and would perhaps have paid for bringing OTHER levees up to Cat-3 rating.

None of which would have changed Monday morning's events: those studies were not due for completion until 2006, and the unimproved levees were NOT the ones that failed.  The failed levy was FULLY completed, FULLY funded, and FULLY rated -- to withstand the Cat-3 storm it was designed for.  If you've problems with THAT (and in hindsight, maybe we should) then we should go ask the Administrations who made that decision -- in 1965.

There is PLENTY to criticise for you lefties that is factually based; PLEASE stop pounding these stupid UN-factual memes!

 

a full-blown hurricane hit Hattiesburg, MS at noon on Monday.  Hattiesburg is 60 miles inland.  Anyone who has watched hurricane coverage on TV in the last 50 years knew right then - even if they didn't know before - that it was going to be beyond local and state government's ability to deal with.  Yet, it's not until Wednesday, when the president ended his vacation, that the FEMA head said "Okay, it's all hands on deck - let's go!"

And what does the president talk about that night?  400 trucks.  The roads to the coast in Mississippi weren't passable at that point, and are only barely passable now.  

Every National Guard unit in the country should have been activated and on the way to Baton Rouge by midnight Monday.  We didn't need trucks down here, we needed helicopters.  State governments, and the New Orleans city government, don't have an awful lot of helicopters.  The federal government does, not even counting those in Iraq.

The feds didn't show up down here till the day after the president ended his vacation.  People had already been without food or water for almost three days.

It didn't take three days to get FEMA into Florida when they had their string of hurricanes last year.  I wonder how come?

Yet, it's not until Wednesday...that the FEMA head said "Okay, it's all hands on deck - let's go!"

And what does the president talk about that night?  400 trucks.  The roads to the coast in Mississippi weren't passable at that point, and are only barely passable now.

Guess it would not have been much sense for them to get all hands on deck and the trucks rolling sooner, then, being that the roads were not passable...

There is a reason they call first responders first responders. They are charged with first response/

guess you've been neither watching CNN nor reading any of the online local newspapers . . .

you'd probably need to get into the archives of sunherald.com at this point - the roads finally got cleared, the president finally ended his vacation, so FEMA and the rest of the feds showed up Thursday night, so the folks down there are more relieved to finally get food and water.

don't know how many people died in this thing - the government's saying 100-125, but eyewitnesses say closer to 1,000, if not more.  (don't know how many died of thirst between Monday morning and Thursday night when they didn't have any water, insulin and other medical supplies, etc.  don't know if there's any way to really establish that at this point.)

there was less looting here than in NO because there are less people.

by the way, I'm not particularly irritated that the president took three days of vacation after this thing hit - I'm very irritated that no one else in the federal government could figure out how to get anything done until he came off vacation.  that in itself is evidence of a badly-run operation.

your area?

how could they afford to get out of town anyway?

they don't have cars, or their cars were junkers, or they're 90 years old in a wheelchair, and no city in the country has the resources to do a house-by-house forced evacuation, no matter how far in advance it was called.

why not just make the argument "they didn't want to evacuate because they knew they could loot TV stores"?  there might have been a few, but of the 50,000 who stayed (400,000 evacuated, which is actually pretty impressive, if you're not trying to bash officials for their political party) assuming that the number who stayed to collect welfare checks or steal TVs was very large is either economic snobbery or racism -

I assume this was an attempt to respond to me?

"it's not until Wednesday, when the president ended his vacation, that the FEMA head said "Okay, it's all hands on deck - let's go!""

If you go to the FEMA website, you can find a full chronology of their actions.

Mississipi was declared an emergency area by president Bush on Sunday, before Katrina even made landfall. The declaration of emergency meant that federal funds were made available, and that "FEMA .. mobilized equipment and resources necessary to protect public health and safety by assisting law enforcement with evacuations, establishing shelters, supporting emergency medical needs, meeting immediate lifesaving and life-sustaining human needs and protecting property, in addition to other emergency protective measures."

It is worth pointing out what FEMA does, since many people have some odd notions.

"FEMA prepares the nation for all hazards and manages federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident. FEMA also initiates mitigation activities, trains first responders, works with state and local emergency managers, and manages the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration."

On August 29th, Monday, the day Katrina made landfall - "The head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced today that federal disaster aid has been made available to the state of Mississippi to help residents and communities recover from the damages and losses incurred from the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina."

By August 31st, rescue and recovery efforts were under way. So you are simply factually wrong when you claim that the head of FEMA sat around doing nothing until Wednesday.

You claim that "Every National Guard unit in the country should have been activated and on the way to Baton Rouge by midnight Monday".

Set aside for the moment the fact that this would require them to travel through a major hurricane. The Guard in each state is a state resource. Bush cannot simply call up the Texas Guard and order them into New Orleans or Baton Rouge.

"The feds didn't show up down here till the day after the president ended his vacation."

You seem a little obsessed with his vacation.

"People had already been without food or water for almost three days."

If that is true, then they would all be dead. Nobody can live three days in that area without water. I think you are pullng my leg a little. It is the job of the state governemnt to have enough food and water to supply people in the initial stages of a disaster.

As you acknowledge, the roads were impassable. And helicopters cannot carry the large amounts of supplies needed. So the only things the Feds could do was what they did - clear the roads as quickly as possible and truck supplies in.

Given the extent of the destruction, and all the blocked roads and downed bridges, its hard to imagine how some people think that full communication lines could have been restored in a day or two.

in Mobile, Alabama.. no real complaints other than unreasonable expectations of total power restored overnight, etc..

the free busses to shelters, where they could have been moved out of town much easier and without needing to be rescued from their rooftops..

problem of causation with the statement.  It simply doesn't make much sense.  The fact that they didn't have the means to leave doesn't mean there were 100k people waiting on welfare checks.

"..the roads finally got cleared, the president finally ended his vacation, so FEMA and the rest of the feds showed up Thursday night, so the folks down there are more relieved to finally get food and water."

How do you imagine that food and water could have gotten through BEFORE the roads were cleared?

Like so many, you seem obsessed with the presidents "vacation". He seems to have been one of the few people on top of things here. If he had not called Blanco and urged her to order a mandatory evacuation, then tens of thousands more would have died.

we're finally learning from the masters!  (can I have a "weapons of mass destruction" from the congregation?  can I have a "death tax" from the congregation?  can I have a "cutting taxes will shrink the budget deficit and fix the recession" from the congregation?)

a short life for you here.

The great big post currently on the top of the screen, don't throw gasoline on the fire.

problem.

I have been reading comments.

A couple of things that come to mind-every Hurricane preparedness flyer or commercial I have seen encourages you stock 3 days worth of food and water.  I figure there is a reason they came to that conclusion, and I suspect it is that it takes three days in order for the storm to pass and FEMA and other agencies to get into full relief mode.

That suspicion is mostly supported by my two experiences with hurricanes.  I was in NC when Fran and then a few years later Floyd hit.  The town I lived in was probably more damaged by Fran, but both times I was without power for about 5 days.  

I am not sure why it took 5 days-part of it was where priorities were-both times we were outside the center of the worst devastation-so it is likely the worst hit areas had most of the resources concentrated on them.  Maybe it was just when they got to us.  I remember after Floyd looking outside my apartment window a couple of days before we got our power back on, and seeing a neighborhood about a block a way with its lights on.

This was a cat 4 hurricane.  It was much, much worse than what I experienced-I can only imagine the devastation to the area, but I have a good guess how bad it is, from my own experience.

There is also the added issue of the flooding in NO itself where a huge segment of the population chose not to heed an evacuation order.  The rescue effort probably has consumed a majority of resources that often are used to restore power and order.  

Basically it is a mess, and too many people seem to think the relief efforts should be an easy job.  

intelligence from the arfo.

called "helicopters" - they don't need roads -

somewhere above.

In that post I mentioned that I experienced to cat 1 hurricanes, that caused some significant damage, but nothing compared to what a higher cat hurricane-like Katrina-would produce.

Both times we were without power for about 5 days.

I figure if it took 5 days to restore my power, it is going to be a lot longer for many of the people in Katrina's path.

Comments on how well FEMA has done, from somebody who knows what he is talking about.

safer than the streets of NO.

A bus ride there still would have been better.

So, you'd have airlifted food for 50,000 people, many of them dispersed throughout an entire city and trapped in their houses/floating on boats?

Ever seen an airdrop of food? Wonder why it's called an air "drop"? Think that's a great idea given the sanitary conditions of large parts of New Orleans at the moment?

It is just a pain in the butt to evacuate, even if you have the means. Many who stayed had ridden out hurricanes before. The decision to stay cost some their lives, but it was THEIR decision. I am not a meteorologist, but I knew by looking at the satellite images three days before that N.O. was in for a very rough time.

why helicopters weren't such a good idea?  Are you late to the party?

if real facts make you uncomfortable

Did someone see facts?

Somebody was making a condescending remark about helicopters a few hours after people who knew what they were talking about discussed the infeasibility of airdrops for supplying >10,000 refugees.

But, hey, maybe "arfo v" has a secret method to land Chinooks on postage stamps.

We have FEMA to bring additional resources.

But state and local governments have to have plans because they know the area the best and given our federal form of government puts much of local emergency response and law enforcement is in their hands is in their hands.

very good link, and interesting information.

I have to agree about the looting hindering search and rescue efforts.  AT first I thought-not so bad-they just want food and water, but now that people are shootinga t each other and other stuff, I am thinking it was a bad idea to ignore the looting.

The New Orleans police have learned a certain method of crowd control through their experiences with Mardi Gras. They will allow a certain amount of lawlessness in the city, and step in when it looks like it's getting out of hand. I've heard some say, this is effective crowd control because it keeps the crowds happy and in a good mood.

For instance, you're really not supposed to flash your boobs in the street, but the cops will over look it and grin and only step in when a large unruly crowd forms with people trying to take pictures.

So it would seem at first, that my reaction, like yours was, if they're taking food and water let them. But then it escalated out of control and you start to realize that letting them break into grocery stores only emboldens them. But it's a catch-22 situation. I am not criticizing the police here, I think they did the best they could with the situation handed to them, and none of us anticipated the civil unrest, which started very quickly after the weather cleared.

My husband and I were ready to take our party barge (which holds 15) into N.O. and start helping people on Tuesday. Until we heard that citizens who were helping were getting guns stuck in their faces and boat-jacked (a new phrase has been coined). Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. It's sad.

Our history books just suck if they left you with the impression that it was an airdrop, not an airlift.

To be sure, the local level will have to accept a certain level of blame in the upcoming months and years of trying to sort this thing out. The pre-planning was clearly not on the level for a disaster of this magnitude.

That said, to absolve all blame on the federal level would be blindly foolish and disingenuous. If you honestly think that the logistic diffuculties are so terrible that military help could not arrive in force until today, even though reporters were wandering through the criminal element without fear since Tuesday, even though school buses were driving through the supposedly impassable streets, well, go ahead and believe what you want I suppose. But regular Americans and history itself will, I think, listen more to the impassioned cries of the sick and dying than the accusations of the 12 or so bloggers that comprise this particular echo chamber.

The facts are that this is a life or death struggle for many of these people. It is our duty as Americans to do everything under our power to ensure that as many lives as possible are saved. That has simply not happened.

in Miami as a Cat 1 storm. We were without power for 36 hours and as of today (Friday) there are still about 10 percent without power in the Homestead area. The reason? There waa extensive flooding in the area and the power company can't do much until the water recedes.

But our 36 hours was blazingly fast compared to the 6 weeks it took to get power back after Andrew!

... the helicopter crews can spend their time rescuing people from rooftops or they can spend their time carrying food and water to rooftops. Take your choice. My money is on getting them off the rooftops.

The City of Atlanta sent out an email LAST FRIDAY warning residents to not put out their yard trash Monday, so the street grates would not clog when all the Katrina related storms rolled thru.   They also sent around Public Works trucks to make sure the grates were clear in anticipation of Katrina related rain.  The City of Atlanta sits along a ridge line, well above sea level, and we don't even have a major river going through the city, but our City government was concerned about flooding PRIOR to Katrina making landfall hundreds of miles away.  In fact it was this email that first alerted me to the hurricane so I logged on to see what was going on.

Reading Brendan Loy leading up to the storm was like watching a slow motion train wreck happening right in front of you.  It was very frustrating and stressful, even living so far away.  Part of the frustration was from experiencing first hand how other states handle approaching hurricanes.

My in-laws live on an island off the Georgia coast and I have other relatives that live along the North Carolina coast.  They evacuate ALL the time and for the Georgia relatives it is usually for naught as the hurricanes like to go to NC instead.  Everytime the coast is even threatened we see tons of evacuees in Atlanta and quite often in Chattanooga and beyond.

I cannot fathom a city on the coast that does not have massive evacuation plans for a cat 5, the fact that 80% of NOLA is below sea level makes their lack of preparing even worse.  Why move your residents to high-ground that is surrounded by low ground/water if you anticipate flooding?  Why not get everyone (who wanted to leave) across the bridges?  They have mass transit there, they had the school buses just sitting there that they could have used to ferry people across the bridges and out of the bowl. Worse yet, they had plenty of notice it was coming - after all the City of Atlanta was preparing for Katrina on Friday.

Listen to your heart, not to your head. Look at the pictures of crying babies, not at the facts. And then, give in to your inner hate.

is that many are trying to make political hay out of some "created" failure to provide immediate relief for people who made a potentially fatal decision --- regardless of why the made it.

> But regular Americans and history itself will, I think, listen more to the impassioned cries of the sick and dying than the accusations of the 12 or so bloggers that comprise this particular echo chamber.

And if one get one's digs in at George Bush at the same time, it's a two-fer!

The facts are that there are plenty of people in Mississippi and Alabama who still have not seen help at all, who are completely fending for themselves. The facts are that FEMA and DoHS admitted that they didn't even know that people were at the convention center until yesterday, though it would be apparent to anyone flying over the area. The facts are that the president has said that the response has been "not acceptable."

I don't think I'm the one displying his hatred here. Your side's "blame the victim" mentality in general, and your preference for the head over the heart in particular, speaks volumes for the concept of compassionate conservatism.

Seriously, I don't know who is completely responsible here, there have obviously been a lot of incompetents around.  But Bush is the head of the federal government, is he not?  And at some point, doesn't the buck stop with the guy who is in charge?  Imagine if Clinton had been in charge, you think the Republicans in Congress would have given him an inch?  This is ultimately what Bush signed up for as President.  To be the big cheese, the head honcho, the CEO.  When does he get held accountable for things that go wrong on his watch?  Seriously, I just want to know when Republicans will see something go wrong, and finally blame the guy who has been in charge the last 5 years?

The day after you give him credit for all the good things he has done.

George Bush? The "federal response" encompasses a number of agencies. I don't hold Bush personally accountable for this situation. I do feel that his public response has been somewhat slow and ineloquent, an opinion shared even by the late Josh Trevino and many of your posters, but I think this is more of a matter of a failed bureucracy of our disaster relief agencies.

Let's see. Everyone in the state of LA knew

a) A Cat 4/5 storm would overwhelm the levees, which were only designed for Cat 3 storms and less.

b) Levee breakage would flood the city to a depth of 20 ft or more, causing widespread drowning

c) Mandatory evacuations still left an estimated 50-100k poor, elderly and infirm remaining in the city with no plans to remove them

d) When disaster strikes and the city floods, the NO mayor blames....George Bush?

I really don't understand your post, if you're trying to be witty, please clarify.

An honest assessment of the situation finds so many problems that need to be addressed at every level of government.  Until both parties pull their heads out of their collective political arses, the problems will remain for another disaster.

Locals screwed up.  State screwed up.  Feds screwed up.  Deal with it and people should get over the "who screwed up more" mentality and seek answers collectively.

and I'm one of the blond ones here.  :0)

but having just asked Tbone to relax, I thought it would be rank hypocrisy in me. I will continue trying to be good and simply ask the reader to insert a snarky explanation of federalism (and posse comitatus) here→[].

The facts are that assistance in the aftermath of this hurricane has been swifter to arrive than for most others, even though the area that has been hit is far greater, and the damage far worse.

The facts are that is is the repsonsibility of the the mayor of NO to inform FEMA of what is happening in his own city. Perhaps if he took time away from the cameras to do his job...?

The facts are that you do not care about the facts, only about continuing your scorched earth stratgey. I guess you have to destroy America in order to save it, right?

Nobody with even minimal reading skills can look at the hate and bile coming from the left, and then imagine that, on the contrary, it is the objects of that hate and bile that are hateful.

You do not even need t know how to read. Just watch what passes for "news" on CNN.

I'm not sure what "blame the victim" mentality you speak of. Is it this?

You side has chosen the way of total war. In due course, I think you will come to regret that.

In an earlier comment, I speculated that part of the reason aid has been slow to get on the scene is that the planners assumed there would be few survivors if the city was flooded by a storm surge. If the surge had overtopped the levees, the water would have risen higher and faster, and many of the people now waiting for rescue would have drowned before they could reach their roofs or higher ground. Interestingly, a commenter at WoC from Baton Rouge suggests this may be accurate. Sounds like the emergency planners may have gotten sucker-punched. (And yes, it is their job to think of things like this...but I can see how it would happen.)

I was going to let the point pass until your smug response.

Please tell me what the functional difference in logistical support is between an airlift and airdrop when referring to basic foodstuffs.

in your estimation, everything's been a complete success, except for the local Democratic pre-disaster screw-ups, and people dying in the sun without water, food or medicine for 3 days after the fact are acceptable in the industrialized superpower.

Swifter to arrive than any other disaster, huh? Even in NON-flood-ravaged areas like Mississippi, where people on the scene have said they've not seen a single show of federal presence.

In your defense, I guess it's plausible that the liberal media just put actors in there, that they're not really suffering and screaming for help. I mean, it's just Bill Burkett, none of it is real. The real news is on Fox...my word, all that looting! When will those coloreds learn to eschew their lawless ways? Your link to a random jerk's blog has shown me the light. Truly enlightening.

Amusing that you would accuse the mayor of trying to get a bunch of "face time," by the way, considering the President felt it was necessary and good strategy (bafflingly) to act as if he was just being briefed on camera today.

Please note that I never specifically criticized Bush, nor do I blame him personally, as stated below, but the response of our federal disaster relief agencies.

You don't see anything wrong with the pictures we're seeing. I disagree. But, hey, whatever helps you sleep at night. Sweet dreams, kid. Dream of some dancing sugarplums for me.

everyone shares some blame in this. I do not at all think the local officials are unaccountable. A proper evacuation plan would've had those people outta there. But now that they're not, the situation needs to be fixed, and quickly. My fear is that it has not been quickly enough for some.

If you take the effort to look, I did not accuse you of hating Bush, and did not mention the man in my comment to you.

If people are dying in the sun wthout water three days after a hurricane hit, it means ... what? That the darn governemnt did not make everything better right away? The federal government is not an all powerful god who can grant life if we but will it.

I don't know why I should need to explain this to alleged academics, but people die in natural disasters. Its kind of where the "disaster" part of the name comes in. In big natural disasters, lots of people die. Some of them will die days after the disaster occurred.

If a major earthquake hits California in the wrong place, thousands of people will probably die. Even though the area affected will be a small fraction of that affected by Katrina, it will take time for aid to reach all those affected. Some people will die, days after the earthquake.

The same applies for the case of a major city being attacked with a 1M ton nuclear bomb. Although the area affected will be small, the number of injured will be large. Some of them will die, days after the attack, as sufficient medical care does not reach them in time.

If a Cat 5 hurricane hits populated parts of the US next year, lots of people will die again. Some of them several days after the hurricane hits. I guarantee it.

The area affected by Katrina covers thousands of square miles. There is no way known to man by which all the people within that area who need help can be be located within a couple of days. That is one of those "fact" things you seem to have trouble with.

It has nothing to do with the US being a superpower. As I have mentioned several times on this thread, many people cannot seem to get it through their heads that Americans can die in natural disasters, just like Indonesians or Indians or Africans. There is no special cosmic dispensation for Americans.

Sweet Dreams, master f.

Is a good decent man. He was a successful Cable Exec and could well have headed Comcast had he not chosen politics. Small businesses in NOLA chose Nagin as the reform candidate and he is personally incorruptable which is rare in Louisiana. He has done what he could to fight corruption at City Hall and in the NOPD.

However, he just did not take the hurricane threat seriously and did not take emergency measures to evac. He had 500 buses both City and School buses, he could have held over the drivers and reached out to Bush to get Amtrak to lay on special trains Thursday and Friday to get people out. It was too late by Saturday.

Declare martial law and FORCE people out.

But all those near misses and lucky stuff developed a mindset that the hurricane would be like Georges. Some minor damage but nothing major.

Ray Nagin is as good as it gets in Louisiana. He is a good man. It's just ... if you haven't lived there you just can't understand. Not ever.

wow.  I dunno where you live or where you are from, but if you don't have direct experience with what is going on in N.O. right now, I can't see how you could possibly say "I think we have sufficient perspective now".  

And then there is this preposterous suggestion:

Had New Orleans been placed under Louisiana National Guard control on Saturday and Sunday, when the city was dry, thousands would not have died.

What in the world?  Find one single example of where martial law was declared and the National Guard brought in BEFORE they even knew that there was an emergency.  Even if people would have requested such a thing, I doubt very seriously hat the request would have been fulfilled.  The truth is that NO ONE knew how bad this storm was gonna be.  The experts had been predicting a major hit on N.O. for years, but over a decade of near misses all over the gulf lulled EVERYONE into a false sense of security.

The truth of the matter is that this is the first disaster that FEMA had to react to since being rolled in with Homeland Security, and their preparedness and planning responsibilities have been stripped from them.  It was the first test of the new bureaucracy created after 911, and it was a failure.  The fact of the matter is that we reacted faster to the tsunami.  The fact of the matter is that the city's own preparedness plan instructed people to go to the convention center and FEMA didn't even know that people were in the convention center.

Its unbelievable to me that this is the most  massive national disaster in at least the last century and there are people who are so quick to get busy blaming people of the party that they don't like.

FWIW, the arch-conservative newspaper, The New Hampshire Union Leader, had a different opinion that the one posted here:

source:

http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showfast.html?article=59785

Bush and Katrina:

A time for action, not aloofness

AS THE EXTENT of Hurricane Katrina's devastation became clearer on Tuesday -- millions without power, tens of thousands homeless, a death toll unknowable because rescue crews can't reach some regions -- President Bush carried on with his plans to speak in San Diego, as if nothing important had happened the day before.

Katrina already is measured as one of the worst storms in American history. And yet, President Bush decided that his plans to commemorate the 60th anniversary of VJ Day with a speech were more pressing than responding to the carnage.

A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead, and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free of disease.

The cool, confident, intuitive leadership Bush exhibited in his first term, particularly in the months immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, has vanished. In its place is a diffident detachment unsuitable for the leader of a nation facing war, natural disaster and economic uncertainty.

Wherever the old George W. Bush went, we sure wish we had him back.

On one hand you have the "Bush lied and people died" folks but then we're going to have the "we should give ANYONE in his situation a little slack" attitude.  Which is it?  It's the Democrats that have created this headhunter mentality...they've been hunting Bush's for years.  Now that some Democrat heads are on the table, are we going to back away from seeking accountability?

and local govt. oh but wait, blanco asked for fed help BEFORE the storm

read and learn.

http://gov.louisiana.gov/Disaster%20Relief%20Request.pdf

"The truth of the matter is that this is the first disaster that FEMA had to react to since being rolled in with Homeland Security, and their preparedness and planning responsibilities have been stripped from them"

Hurricane Ivan?

Hurricane Dennis?

Do at least a little research, please. FEMA became part of DHS in March 2003.

OK, I read that. What I learned is that Blanco requested that Bush declare an emergency on August 28.

Now you read and learn. Note the date.

I certainly wasn't trying to be smug or obnoxious.

I truly am sorry if it came across that way.

It was intended to be a comment on how superficial our education system tends to be, not on your recall or knowledge base.

My apologies.

help at all.

It didn't take three days to get FEMA into Florida when they had their string of hurricanes last year.  I wonder how come?

Could be because Florida Emergency Management could tell its butt from a hot rock.

no one involved agrees with you.

President Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana on Saturday because of the approach of Hurricane Katrina and his spokesman urged residents along the coast to heed authorities' advice to evacuate.

and here

In the face of a catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by Mayor Ray Nagin.[...]

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.

Want to reconsider the bit of agitprop your flogging about here?

because I know this is going to shock you but we have a federal system of goverment. "[T]he big cheese, the head honcho, the CEO" are the mayor of NO and the governor of LA.

At least that is what the City of New Orleans used to believe before they actually had to do some work:

The Office of Emergency Preparedness is responsible for the response and coordination of those actions needed to protect the lives and property of its citizens from natural or man-made disasters as well as emergency planning for the City of New Orleans. Our primary responsibility is to advise the Mayor, the City Council and Chief Administrative Officer regarding emergency preparedness activities and operations.We coordinate all city departments and allied state and federal agencies which respond to city-wide disasters and emergencies through the development and constant updating of an integrated multi-hazard plan. All requests for federal disaster assistance and federal funding subsequent to disaster declarations are also made through this office. Our authority is defined by the Louisiana Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act of 1993, Chapter 6 Section 709, Paragraph B, "Each parish shall maintain a Disaster Agency which, except as otherwise provided under this act, has jurisdiction over and serves the entire parish".

already on site for the rest of them, they had the logistics in place, and just had to shift resources and people around.

One of the major problems was a communications breakdown among first responders. Landlines and cellphones were down. It seemed as thought there were a few satellite phones. Badly hit areas were unreachable across a wide geographical area. That was a major reason that resources were't getting to where they are needed. What sort of technical contingency plan can be done if communications systems go down in a wide area?

Another problem in retrospect seems to be the focus on Tuesday and Wednesday on rescue. When the first reports of looting came in, both Gov Blanco and Mayor Nagin said that their priority was saving lives. The boats and helicopters were used to rescue people. By ignoring the first signs of disorder, they enabled a situation that got out of hand by Thursday, which slowed relief efforts. With limited resources and major catastrophe, that seems like a very tough set of decisions. When you have crews to dispatch, and you have a choice between halting people breaking into stores and saving people who are about to die, which would you do?

If the early response had gone the other way, and they had allocated most resources to protecting stores while letting people die, the criticism would have been deafening and justified.  In retrospect, the balance was wrong. More effort should have gone into civic order. But that's a hard decision to make when people are dying and you're making resource decisions.

A huge problem seems to have been the breakdown in the police force. The police were not getting guidance and direction. It wasn't just the few police officers looting (which was bad enough). It was the lack of coordination and discipline and morale. The failure of the police force was a huge contributor.

The federal disinvestment in the levee system and wetlands was a contributor.  Louisiana officials said at the time, and the media reported at the time, that funding cuts would hurt hurricane preparedness.

The comments by the head of FEMA that the levee breach and flooding were unpredictable was stunningly uninformed. That scenario has had a tremendous amount of publicity for years. Federal resources arrived en mass on Friday. The flooding was Tuesday. That seems late.

There were problems and successes up and down the line. What's needed isn't D-R fingerpointing but logical assessment and planning and prevention. If  people get stuck in D-R blame games then we're all setting ourselves up for more disasters.

combined with really poor planning on the part of the local government (although from another post it looks like the plan was in place, so maybe lack of execution).

And what could make one have poor execution-an unrealistic expectiona of what a hurricane is, does and can do.

I think the US has gotten lucky one too many times, when it comes to hurricanes-to the point where many people think they are just really bad rain storms.

Also, one thing to remember about FEMA and those who are restoring areas, is that while they may take some risks, they aren't going to do anything that can get them killed-like go into flooded areas to restore power lines, or overload a helicopter or boat.

The truth of the matter is that this is the first disaster that FEMA had to react to since being rolled in with Homeland Security,

Not true. They were part of DHS during last year's hurricane season.

pony under here, but doubtful.

and their preparedness and planning responsibilities have been stripped from them.

...and the functions and people moved to a different directorate while retaining the same funding.

The fact of the matter is that the city's own preparedness plan instructed people to go to the convention center and FEMA didn't even know that people were in the convention center.

Was this emergency relief or an easter egg hunt. Don't you think the people who ordered refugees to the convention center should have told someone? Apparently not.

... but remember after the first storm FEMA et al were now also in the target zone and become every bit as much a part of the problem as the solution.

What's needed isn't D-R fingerpointing but logical assessment and planning and prevention. If  people get stuck in D-R blame games then we're all setting ourselves up for more disasters.

Nice sentiment, but that really isn't the way it happens, is it?

disaster screw ups that have caused the problems we see now.

Had the mayor required evacuation sooner, there wouldn't be so many people trapped.

Had the mayor actually gotten his own school buses up and running, they could have gotten people out more quickly.

Had the governor (after all the governor is who calls up the guard, not the president) called the guard up sooner, there may have been more ways to get people out and prevent the looting.  The local cops seem to be pretty ineffectual.

And maybe if the City had actually taken a Cat 5 hurricane seriously, the situation wouldn't be as dire as is right now.

... they did superb work in FOUR back-to-back storms in six weeks in Florida in 2004. After the first storm FEMA et al were in the "hit zones" for the remaining three; to a degree they were as badly impacted as the residents.

Unfortunately all the media focus is on New Orleans so we aren't getting an enormous amount of information about the relief response in the rest of the Gulf coast. But from the limited information available it appears to be going well.

The people of the Gulf coast have lost everything as well. They have waited as long for FEMA. Yet their attitude seems to be significantly different. The racial mix is similar and many of the impacted parts of the Gulf coast are of similar so the racists don't have much argument there.

Dare one suggest that success, and the perception, of the response has much to do with the competence of the local authorities and the attitude of the populace?

result of poor local planning and execution.

The buck ultimately in this case at least falls on the Mayor's desk, with a small portion going to the governor.

The president did his part-he declared a federal disaster area before the thing hit, and got the FEMA ball rolling-that is Bush's sole responsibility in this-although he did order some navy ships into the area to offer assistance, it takes a while for them to get there.

The one issue with the Navy and the Tsunami is that the Navy ship that helped out was already in the area-they didn't have to go very far.

Some of the ships for Katrina are coming from Norfolk. And while there are bases close by, all of those ships would have been sent to sea (since a ship at sea can ride out/avoid a hurricane, while a ship at the dock would beat it to death and cause damage).

I think you are spot-on about the police force and the failure to maintain law and order. The breakdown may have been a major contributor. Now we hear that a large nubmer of officers have "resigned" because of working conditions, hours, and risk. What kind of people did they hire that quit over the risk of being a cop?

But the Corps of Engineers has already said that federal funding of the levee system was not involved; certainly not in the failure of the 17th Street Canal which was a major contributor to the flooding. Funding cuts didn't impact that wall; it was up to design and no further work had been planned on it.

but my memory may be off on the years.  FEMA responds to earthquakes, flooding and other disasters.

with street cops, on WWLTV and on the Interdictor blog. The police officers said that they were not getting orders and support from the chain of command. Some of this may have been technical and a lot organizational. If you were a cop on the street, and had no communication or direction from your leadership, what would you do?

p.s. the Interdictor blog is kept by the crisis manager at an internet hosting facility in downtown New Orleans that has kept operating til now.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/

collapse of the twin towers weren't much help cleaning up.

Do you really expect the local police (1400) to be able to do very much with no electricity, no communication, and 80% of the city underwater?

I agree about evacuating the city earlier and the use of the buses.  That should have been part of the city's plan for  a storm like this headed toward that city.  The local mayor should answer for this.

While Bush, his administration and the thousands of people tirelessly trying to save lives it is important to make sure someone defends their reputations.  If you cannot join in personnally, defending those who are joining in from partisan sniping is also a worthy effort.

> There were problems and successes up and down the line. What's needed isn't D-R fingerpointing but logical assessment and planning and prevention. If  people get stuck in D-R blame games then we're all setting ourselves up for more disasters

Of course, this is how it starts: no partisanship, everyone's to blame, etc., then the partisans pivot and say "Well, the buck stops with Bush, so it's his fault".

No thanks, I'm not playing. We need to go back to the NOLA city disaster plan. What did they envision would result from a Cat 4/5 storm which breached levees and flooded the city after they failed to completely evacuate the city? Were they prepared to live with that result? Apparently so.

Could the Feds have gotten there sooner? Perhaps, we'll have to look at a detailed timeline to be definitive. But let's stipulate that once NOLA created the conditions for a humanitarian disaster with an inadequate plan, a disaster is what they got. Complaining that the Feds didnt bail them out quickly enough doesnt cut the blame mustard.

save lives, enforce the law, keep order, help people, uphold my oath of office? But that's just me.

Actually there are about 22-2400 police, NOPD and Orleans Parish sheriffs department. With 80% of the city underwater you have just decreased patrol area and increased patrol density by 80% making your problem easier.

The real question for the police, other than why they were treating the storm like a blue light special, is why they didn't keep control of the Astrodome? They could have done this one thing.

If you were a cop on the street, and had no communication or direction from your leadership, what would you do?

I like to think I would do the job I signed up for at least until the crisis was passed. I don't understand how you could maintain a police force by hiring people who will quit in large numbers when the going gets tough or they are at risk. That's what cops do, it's a risky job. How could you expect the force to function if you don't know that the troops will "stand and fight."

I'm not a cop but I suspect that most well managed police forces train their officers to act independently. Just because you don't have orders doesn't mean you have to sit on your backside and wait. As in the military, if you don't have specific orders move to the sound of firing and get back in the fight.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure that the majority of officers are hard working and fiercely loyal to the people of New Orleans. But some are not. But if they are not getting orders and they are not getting relief or supplies then maybe they have a management problem. Watching the chief come unhinged on TV last night makes me suspect that patronage may have a lot to do with New Orleans politics.

Nobody with even minimal reading skills can look at the hate and bile coming from the left, and then imagine that, on the contrary, it is the objects of that hate and bile that are hateful.

First of all, that argument makes no sense. Bush aside, if you spew "hate and bile" at a criminal or a despot, then by your logic, it is the people spewing the hate and bile who are in fact hateful. So if I criticize Chairman Mao, then I'm the evil one. Oh-kay. Anyway, then you say...

I did not accuse you of hating Bush

Perhaps you did not mention him by name, but anyone with minimal reading skills can tell what you implied. Unless you think the left is constantly spewing their bile at FEMA and the DoHS. This reactionary defense of our leader or our government without even bothering to examine the argument is not very productive, not to mention increasingly desperate. At some point, doesn't Occam's Razor kick in and say that maybe a lot of the screw-ups we've seen of the last 4 years are the responsibility of those in charge and not some vast liberal media conspiracy trying to undermine the president and Christianity itself?

Anyway, on to the crux of your argument...

I don't think anyone is disputing that people die in natural disasters, so quit trying to harp on an obvious, snarky point to try and prove yourself astute and clever. It's not working.

What I am disputing is that the help arrived as soon as it could and the response form the federal government was immediate and efficient. You seem to believe that a convenient moat was formed around New Orleans rendering all roads impassable until yesterday. If reporters and people on foot are able to get in and out of the city, surely the mighty US military with amphibious and air-drop capabilites can do so as well.

The cavalry arrived in NO in full force Friday, 3 days after Katrina left. Thousands of people that are not hard to "locate" have been sitting around in Alabama and Mississippi fending for themselves. Is it really that hard to ask for one supply truck for each moderately sized town in the immediate affected area? Relief forces were clearly not mobilized and at the ready ahead of the disaster, and even IF the mayor didn't specifically ask for the help, the onus is on the government to protect its citizens and prepare for the worst case. Lives that could have been saved were not. It's unacceptable, plain and simple. And the PRESIDENT AGREES, so I don't know why you're even arguing it.

I think there is plenty of blame to go all around, from local level to the federal. If you disagree, fine. Go ahead and blame everyone at the bottom and none of the people at the top, the people who have been, since 9/11, trying to streamline disaster response so just such a thing does not happen. That is, after all, the Conservative way. The rest of the world and the rest of the country do not agree with you.

Don't bother to respond, I won't be coming back, but feel free to give each other high-fives and snark me 'til your heart's content.

Sorry for the confusion, I thought you guys would understand the reference. "Late" as in "not here anymore."

killed in the flooding.

Some of the cops have been killed by looters, but then maybe had the cops been better at controlling the situaiton, it wouldn't have turned into the OK corral venice style.

I also agree with Strieff-why weren't the cops controlling the superdome?  

Supposedly a large percentage of the cops resigned their positions, rather than go into NO to do their jobs.

Yep, the cops have been pretty ineffectual-maybe years of turning a blind eye to crime is a part of the problem right now.

This is interesting. Please put to rest the notion that nobody asked for help. The president simply declaring an emergency does not mean that all the necessary steps have been taken.

knee to hip deep water.  So you didn't really decrease the patrol area by 80% you just made 80% of it impossible to patrol.  Hence:  Looters.

Superdome.  But I agree they should have been protecting the points of greatest population density in the city at that time the dome and the convention center.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.

But, as with so much of the "reality based community" reality isn't something you easily deal with.

You promised to leave. Now go.

If the looters could operate in it, so could the police. So in a worst case scenario you have the same patrol area. If you call in all officers then you triple the manning.

That in combination with radios is really what allows them to get the drop on criminals.  If it was all just a foot race I think there would be far more crime.

most of the police cars appear to be parked well below sea level.

But if you don't have cars, you got feet.

at the moment, although I'm sure there are some who did some very good things and will continue to do so.

Those who walked off the job in the middle of this catastrophe should be black-balled from any job involving the public trust ever again.

I too agree with Streiff, they should have been protecting and maintaining order among the refugees in the superdome.

I still don't believe that a police force that is able to maintain order and crime at a certain base rate in a functional city can continue to maintain order in a demolished city with 80% flooded, no electricity, and thousands of citizens trapped and stranded throughout the city.  Throw in the increase in crime due to looting and it is not possible for any police force to maintain order.

is that they at least try. Not throw their hands up and walk away. Not loot stores. All I saying is that they just try to make the 10 square yards they control, sans car, sans radio, sans secret decoder ring, a little bit safer.

They no longer had the advantage of cars.

A significant decrease in the mobility of the force to only the level of the enemy is naturally going to  decrease their effectiveness as a force for maintaining order.

Not to mention some streets impassible, prevents outflanking them, and no helpful bystanders around to say   "They went that'a'way!"

Yeah, I guess the urging of evacuation is more important than ensuring the infrastructure to repsond was in place. In "reality," words are more important that action. Clown.

G'bye.

the fact is that the cops signed on for the job, and part of that means you keep safe what you can, when you can, with whatever you can.

The cops turned a blind eye to the little stuff, and as any parent knows, when you give a misbehaving kid an inch they will seek to take the mile.  When you overlook the little things, the criminals seek to do bigger things.

The cops didn't much appear to be trying here-although some reports indicate that there wasn't any leadership, which means that a police chief and some deputies may need to lose their jobs, when all is said and done.

The cops may not have been able to control everything, but I bet they sure as heck could have controlled some of the stuff going on at the superdome and convention center.

and as I said those who walked off the job should never be able to get a job again even as a dog catcher in any municipality.

And if that video I saw of someone in a blue uniform looting shoes was a police officer.  They should be put in a jail with water flooding in.

be needed if over 100,000 people didn't leave the city.

Most of the problems in NO right now are because people stayed behind to ride out a hurricane that was stronger than the levees were rated for.

NO is a city where you can't take the risk of riding out a storm.  Miami you can get by with it, but in a city that is below sea level and basically turns into a bathtub, when the levee is breached has to have 100% evacuation compliance.

The City should have ordered the evacuation sooner, and should have used buses sooner to get people out of the city completely.

Somebody counting buses in the picture of the buses underwater did some math and figured about 13,000 people could have been taken out of the city just with the buses in the picture-the lot was larger than that.

Those things are done at the City/local level and should be part of the city local plan.  The feds don't order the school buses into action, the mayor does.

First hit him in the knee before he runs away.

To your one point I haven't already agreed with, which is better for the police to do in a catastrophe?  Grab a guy and walk him to the flooded jail a few miles away for stealing a TV or keep looking for people who are in need of help to possibly save their lives?

Speaking as the owner of a television among other things, and the possessor of a life as well as a father, husband, son, brother,.....

I say save lives first.

quickly learn that "do as I say, not as a do" doesn't work.

The cops should have known better-when the guys in charge of enforcing the law are breaking it, they give tacit approval for everyone else to break the law.

are the people who aren't saved yet any safer, because lawlessness prevailed?

Keeping control of the looting, keeps the people who aren't saved yet safe.

The looters turned into roving bands that were doing all sorts of horrible things to the innocent.  The cops initial tacit approval of what was going on, by ignoring it, led to worse things happening.

It got tot he point where the rescue efforts at times had to be ceased, because it was too dangerous.

So yeah, save some people, but maybe haul a few people away while you are at it, or do as some suggest-shoot them.  Not sure how I feel about shooting on sight, but it would certain serve as more of a deterrant than ignoring the crimes did.  Ignoring the crimes in the end made the city more dangerous for everyone.

in the city of NO who does not heed the first call to disarm.

I am not for shooting a 16 year old or a 35 year old with a tv in his hands.

seems to have failed miserably. The goal of the homeland security re-organization was to improve coodination between the various branches of government for better terrorism prevention and disaster response.  That coordination clearly hadn't happened.

with the comments about the failure of the police.

I don't hear agreement with the comments about reduced funding for levees and wetlands, speed of national response, and FEMA's seeming surprise at the flooding which had been predicted for decades.

It was reported by the Times Picayune that the forest service offered aereal fire-fighting units, and they were unable to get federal approval to come yet.

Looks like the city is starting to burn (predictable after disasters that cut water supply)

http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea.html

According to the FEMA website, "FEMA prepares the nation for all hazards and manages federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident."  No state or local agency has the resources to deal with events as large as Katrina, and it was FEMA that identified just such a hurricane as one of the most dangerous natural disasters likely to occur.  If this is not a "national incident", I do not know what would be.

In FEMA's press releases of August 28th and 29th, they talk about moving teams and materials into position, so I guess you could consider that as pre-positioning, but without transportation to actually move the stuff where it is needed, and to evacuate people who need to get out, it does not matter.

I am just disappointed that after all the mock exercises it did not go better.  I know they are doing everything they can now.

And to understand how disaster relief actually works, before opining on this.

Let me try it this way: Which Federal personnel does FEMA deploy to clear storm debris?

And was being a pedant. The proper phrasing would be Josh Trevino, late of this site.

> I am not for shooting a 16 year old or a 35 year old with a tv in his hands.

Ok, but this isnt really what the problem was. It wasthe collapse of order at the Convention center and Superdome. It was that armed gangs were terrorizing, assaulting and raping defenseless refugees at those sites for 3 days. That's what the TV cameras showed and what America is outraged about.

This is also what the left s blaming George Bush for. However, this problem could and should have been the minimum mission of NOPD. Given that the Mayor told people to gather at these sites, his PD should have taken care to provide basic security there.

This wasnt done. Whether looting occurred elsewhere in the city isnt why the left is blaming George Bush now.

The mayor and NOPD should have provided basic security, and basic provisions at those sites. Police officers have basic first aid training also and should have provided it for the sick for the 2-3 days it was needed.

Instead nothing was provided by the city, people were terrorized and the left blames George Bush for this.

Take a five-gallon bottle of water, or a 24-count box of 12-oz bottles of water.  Drop from a helicopter hovering, say, 100 feet above dry land.

Now, take that same water supply and land the helicopter, then dump the supply onto the landing area.  Take off.

How do YOU think the results will differ?

> also, the homeland security approach  seems to have failed miserably

I would agree with this. It seems that the creation of DHS as a single entity was to improve co-ordination among the federal agencies - INS, FBI, FEMA, etc. This may well be happening (dont know, but I wont knock them w/out evidence) but it appears that the DHS may well be further isolated from state and local agnecies. So perhaps improved co-ordination along the intra-federal axis (FEA, FBI, etc) is causing more isolation along the federal-state-local axis. Not sure of this, it would be unsurprising given how bureaucracies work.

As for the levee funding issues, let's first stipulate that the NO levees worked as designed since they were designed for Cat 3 and less. Further, news reports now say the levee section that failed had been recently upgraded to its full Cat 3 capability. So,lack of current funding doesnt seem to have caused this crisis.

Now, as to whether a Cat4/5 capable levee was aborted by bureaucratic funding battles, I havent any evidence of that. Do you?

Now lets all beat him!

You obviously haven't read my comments in this thread where I agreed with Streiff that when NO sent people to the dome and the cc that they should have had the police presence there to maintain order and safety.  They do it for football games and concerts afterall.  Additionally they should have been sending food and water and if they were incapable they should have been on the phone to the state and the feds to help them get necessities there.

Nobody on the left is blaming bush for looting.  There was a comment here earlier saying Randi Rhodes was encouraging people to loot.

They are blaming him for several things like cutting funds to levee and other projects around the city.  I am not making those criticisms here.

I have said the NOPD could not have been expected to maintain order throughout the city given the level of destruction that took place.  Were things done wrong by the local government?  Absolutely!   And with or without those mistakes this catastrophe would be beyond the resources of any local government.  The federal government has to step in and rectify the situation.

rated for cat 4/5

But I did just read an article saying that FEMA hadn't carried out a congressionally authorized study to plan evacuation for a Cat 3 or greater hurricane:

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayu
ne/archives/2005_09.html#076546

WASHINGTON -Former Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-Chackbay, is "reluctant" to cast blame while rescue efforts continue for Hurricane Katrina victims, but is expressing unhappiness the Federal Emergency Management Agency didn't carry out a congressionally ordered study of evacuation plans for a Category 3 or greater hurricane.

Tauzin said that the House authorized $500,000 for the study in 1997 and when FEMA asked for more clarification on what Congress intended it passed detailed language setting out the parameters in 1999.

are still in the early planning stages. I think they're still trying to get funding for the full feasibility study.

"Federal resources arrived en mass on Friday. The flooding was Tuesday. That seems late."

What do you base this on? Do you have a timeline of when the Federal aid was supposed to arrive, and are you saying they failed to meet that?

Or is it just your gut level feeling from watching TV for a couple of days?

From everything I have been able to find, it was expected that Federal help would take a few days to arrive in the event of a hurricane. And that is exactly what happened. All the people who state as fact that help should have arrived Wednesday are simply offering their feelings.

There is still no evidence at all the aid was slow in coming.

"Residents [of New Orleans] need to know they'll be on their own for several days in a situation like this,"

According to Col. Michael L. Brown, then-deputy director of the Louisiana emergency preparedness department, last year.

Surely you are not suggesting that the need to clear debris was unexpected.  You do not even have to have been through a bad storm to figure out that trees and powerlines get knocked down, roads and bridges get washed out, and areas get flooded.  If you are going to prepare supplies for a the survivors of a storm, you have to take into account the difficulties in getting them to the survivors.

As far as what federal resources are available to FEMA for clearing roads and delivering supplies, there are too many sources of heavy equipment and transportation to list, but they include the national forest service, the army corps of engineers, various national guard and air national guard units, and of course, the army reserve and active duty logistical and construction units.  Any of these are available to FEMA upon request to, and by the order of, the president in a national emergency.

My point was this: FEMA provides disaster funding and resources. They don't provide personnel and material directly in some cases; most times, they simply coordinate with the local authorities.

After a hurricane, they hire subcontractors to assist in debris removal, if that's what the local plan calls for. It's emblematic.

All of your above may be true; but that's simply not how the system works. Plans are made at the local level by officials who know the local area well. FEMA coordinates with them and provides the resources. They are not God. They don't get to commandeer whatever resources they need, and they generally defer to local authorities in coordination in situations like this.

My essential point is that the world is not contained on websites. Keep that in mind.

that is why they recommend you stock at least three days worth of water and food for each person in your hurricane emergency kit.

They well understand that removing the debris is a daunting task.

There have been other huricaines since FEMA was rolled into Homeland Security, but to say that any of them were comparable to Katrina is to not understand the situation in the slightest.  there is no comparison.  the only other event to compare this to would be 911.

Don't you think the people who ordered refugees to the convention center should have told someone?

that's the whole point.  the local authorities and FEMA should have been cooordinated, but were not.  no matter how flat you make a pancake, there are still always two sides.  both parties share some culpability here.  Since FEMA itself identified a N.O. huricaine as one of the most likely disaters to hit the US in a report back in 2001, one would think that they would have worked with the city to plan all this stuff out.  It doesnt appear that the appropriate level of planning occured, period.

Also, to compare this huricaine to the ones last year is an inadequate comparison.  Everyone thought that this storm would be like the ones in the recent past, and this is part of the problem.  The whole country had been lulled into a false sense of security.  Everyon just thought that they would leave town for the night and come back to a few downed trees, some power outtages, and a few instances of homes being blown over.  This is what has happened during every storm in the last decade really.  We've been really lucky.  You just cannot compare this storm to anything in the recent past except 911.  Perhaps the silver lining in all this is that we found out how inadequate the changes we made after 911 are, and we can do what is necessary to correct the situation.

Lastly, its very interesting how a decade ago conservatives would have been very quick to provide constructive (or not) criticism about some government agency that did not deliver.  Amazingly, some conservatives have become so ideological that they are now in a position of defending the very bureaucracy that they once despised.

evacuate where?  Nagin's coming under a lot of pressure for supposedly not loading up buses and evacuating people, but where exactly were those buses supposed to go?

Louisiana does not have enough resources for that kind of evacuation.  Texas offered only after the hurricane hit, and even then reluctantly.  Do you really think any other state government would have jumped at the chance to accept thousands of refugees from a storm that might hit?  People become generous after tragedy, not before.  

We can be glib and say "anywhere is better than the city," but here's the alternate scenario: Nagin loads up all those buses and tells them simply to leave. We end up with thousands of people on the sides of the interstate with limited supplies, no shelter, and no long-range plan.  And the electorate screams at the mayor's incompetence.

Let's face it: there was nothing short of a MUCH more concrete plan that would have salvaged this situation, and for that, Nagin is as much to blame as every mayor before him, every governor of the state, and the federal government - Yes, the feds, too: You're right that the local and state governments are supposed to be first response, but an evacuation of this size cannot be coordinated without federal assistance (see above, on Texas) - so the lack of a concrete evacuation plan is as much FEMA's fault as the state of Louisiana's and the city of New Orleans.  This is a failure at every level.  Everyone from Nagin to Bush was gambling on a miss.

Likewise, on Nagin's decision to keep what personnel were left on survivor duty instead of stopping looters...  Tough call, but it was lose-lose from the beginning.  There was simply no right decision in that situation.  For every officer who was not put on keeping-the-peace duty, there are refugees rescued from roofs who are thankful that they are alive.  My cousin was one of them, and even that was barely a success.  

On another note, someone posted that the relief efforts have been much more well-organized elsewhere on the coast.  Unless the people I've been in contact with there are lying to me, that's simply not true.  I could tell you horror stories.

In sum: Nagin's going to come out of this much better than you're trying to cast him.  He's not blameless by any stretch of the imagination, but the portrait you've painted of him is not nearly as awful as it seems.  For a lot of us on both sides of the political divide, he's been a source of strength.

> Tauzin said that the House authorized $500,000 for the study in 1997 and when FEMA asked for more clarification on what Congress intended it passed detailed language setting out the parameters in 1999

It's endless, no? FEMA doesnt do a study, so it's to blame. Dont we really know the problem here - That even a mandatory evacuation of NO results in 100-200k people who refuse or cant evacuate and there are no means to get them out in the 48-72 hrs of warning available before a big Cat 4/5 storm?

There's no real solution here. The city cannot be fully evacuated, a devastating flood is likely and civil chaos will result. It's inevitable, isnt it?

Only thing I can see is that, knowing this, FEMA and others should have prepared to return in force in 24-48 hrs and not the 72-96 hrs that they did. I can fully fault them for that. That delay probably caused many deaths and much unnecessary suffering.

Rubbish. There has still been zero evidence that there was any failure at the Federal level.

FEMA help arrived right on schedule. The problem is that the local authorities in New Orleans were MIA.

"Other federal and state officials pointed to Louisiana's failure to measure up to national disaster response standards, noting that the federal plan advises state and local emergency managers not to expect federal aid for 72 to 96 hours, and base their own preparedness efforts on the need to be self-sufficient for at least that period. "Fundamentally the first breakdown occurred at the local level," said one state official who works with FEMA. "Did the city have the situational awareness of what was going on within its borders? The answer was no."

Link.

You claimed that "The truth of the matter is that this is the first disaster that FEMA had to react to since being rolled in with Homeland Security"

You were wrong. This was not the first disaster. FEMA was felt to have handled the prior disasters well. If FEMA had problems they should have surfaced before now.

At least have the grace to admit you were wrong before trying to move the goalposts.

You have still failed to show that there were actually any FEMA failures. We know fro a fact that there were multiple failures on the local level. Why the insistence on focusing on imaginary problems at the Federal level and ignoring real ones with the first repsonders?

To say that FEMA had no failures is to turn a blind eye to the problem.  Its incredible that anyone would actually say that FEMA had no failures.  to point out just a few:

1.  the FEMA director the day after the storm hit, portreyed everything as being a-ok and said that the planning was obviously well done.  I doubt anyone would agree with that now.  Not even the director agrees with that now.  he said on thursday that there was no way to know how bad it would be.
   
2.  There were reports of National Guard troops playing basketball in Biloxi after the hurricaine hit:
   

On Wednesday reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics.

source:

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/opinion/12555508.htm

3.  You may not like the source, but Senator Landrieu's statement asking for help outlines many FEMA failures:

"I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid.

When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims -- far more efficiently than buses -- FEMA again dragged its feet.

Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.

"But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment.

source:

http://landrieu.senate.gov/~landrieu/releases/05/2005903E12.html

I am sorry that I didn't admit that my first post was not as descriptive as it should have been.  I didn't distinguish between the less powerful hurricaines of last year, and if that makes one think that I am a liar or uninformed, that is indeed a very costly mistake on my part.  That being said, no one can reasonably compare huricaines of last year to Katrina and say that FEMA was presented with a similar challenge last year.  That was my point.

The 20% of the city that didn't evacuate dovetails with the roughly 20% without cars.

The Washington Post interviewed a number of people who didn't evacuate. Their jobs included private duty home care, part-time janitor, self-employed graphic arts.  They had family savings of $100 to $400. I also posted this to another thread.

An evacuation plan for the working poor in New Orleans would require buses and trains, places for people to stay; food, water, and sanitation for them. Planning could have helped there, but it would have been much more complicated than just lining up buses.

It sounds as though our disaster preparedness people up and down the chain did not honestly look at what it would take to evacuate an area where people had so little money.

of course the local authorities share the blame, but to completely absolve FEMA because of your allegiance to a republican president is turning a blind eye to the problems that exist.  Have you seen Senator Landrieu's statement on FEMA errors?

"I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims -- far more efficiently than buses -- FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.

"But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast -- black and white, rich and poor, young and old -- deserve far better from their national government.

source:

http://landrieu.senate.gov/~landrieu/releases/05/2005903E12.html

Then we have this:

On Wednesday reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics.

Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!

source:

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/opinion/12555508.htm

Col. Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security for New Orleans, was very ctitical. saying that the whole recovery operation had been "carried on the backs of the little guys for four g__mn days," he complained that "the rest of the g__mn nation can't get us any resources for security."

Its also interesting to me that the libertarian, Lew Rockwell, predicted responses like some of the ones I read here:

The ever-stupid right will come to the defense of Bush and the Iraq War that has completely absorbed this regime's attention, pointing out that Bush is actually a big and compassionate spender who cares about infrastructure, while demanding that people recognize his greatness, along with all the other pieties that have become staples of modern "conservatism."

source:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/flood.html

...and that is from a guy who is so conservative that he wants to privatize the levee system!!  People are starting to wake up and realize that blindly defending Bush at all costs may not be the best strategy this time.  

1. You simply did not respond to what I said. The Federal aid arrived on schedule. No amount of whiney quotes from people playing CYA changes that.
   
2. You suggest that I am trying to protect the president from blame. Not so. If there is blame on his part I will blame him. To date there is zero evidence that he has done anything to be blamed for.
   
3. Lew Rockwell has hated Bush, and all Republicans, for a very long time. Stop pretending that he is a conservative or somebody who under other circumstances would be on the presidents side.
   
4. Governor Blanco has been running the show. She has resisted all efforts by the Feds to take over. She only just got around to asking for military help to quell the looters yesterday. I suggest that you address your complaints about the situation to her.
   
5. The attempt to magnanimously announce that there is plenty of blame to go around, when all the evidence indicates that the blame belongs with Blanco, Nagin, and Col. Terry Ebbert, is an effortt to pass the buck from those who should be blamed on to others.

..remember such a complex evacuation requires much more time than normal to remove sickly, elderly and others without resources or places to go. It's rare that planners would have more than 72 hrs of solid warning before landfall from weather authorities and such a complex evacuation would require at least that much or more time.

Not to mention the expense of such a process would be prohibitive for all but the most extreme events, ie, the once or twice a century a Cat 4/5 storm might impact New Orleans.

The more one looks at this problem, the more appreciaition I have for the difficulties the planners must have faced. Essentially, the city is nearly impossible to fully evacuate. The focus would instead need to be on minimizing the time the rescue teams take to reach the stricken city with help.

Here, the effort obviously fell far short.

72 hours ahead of time, there is a lot of variability in the path of a storm. It seems as though there are several storms per year that have the potential to be "the big one" 3 days ahead of time, and only one per generation or two that is that extreme.

So yes, the focus would be on

• minimizing the time it takes to get rescue teams in
  
• less of the insane bureacracy that slowed the arrival of out-of-state resources like red cross and airborn firefighters
  
• better co-ordination between federal and state authorities
  
• having in-town shelter be better prepared
  
• better communication among first responders

"All I have to offer is blood, toil, [REDACTED], and sweat." Red Hot correction or clarification forthcoming, I suppose:

I like best to remember Mr Winston Churchill on the day after the House of Commons was bombed. As a journalist, I knew - as most M.P.s did not yet know - of this disaster, and I went down to Westminster to see what it looked like. The bomb had fallen almost directly above the Speaker's Chair, which was crushed under a steep hill of smoking rubble. A cloud of dust still hung over the place. The stone of the doorway into the Chamber - later to be preserved and to be named after the Prime Minister - had been flaked and eroded in one night so that it looked as old and as weather-worn as the ruins of Ancient Rome. As I clambered up the hill of rubble, I was suddenly confronted by a figure clambering up from the other side. There stood Winston Churchill, his face covered with dust, through which the tears that ran down his cheeks had made two miniature river-beds. " I am a House of Commons man," he used to boast; had that boast not been true, he would doubtless have surrendered to the temptation and the clamour to put a stop to Question Time, which caused him and his ministers so much extra work and worry, but which provided that safety-valve for public bewilderment or discontent, and which gave the British an advantage of morale over all the other belligerents. "I am

a House of Commons man." And Churchill wept as he saw his beloved House in ruins.

-Vernon Bartlett, And Now, Tomorrow (1960). Here's the source. Crying in front of journalists! What a poor leader Winston was.

On September 12, 2001, President Bush, following a conference call with New York Governor George Pataki and Mayor Rudy Giuliani, became very emotional as he answered questions from reporters. The AP's Dave Espo wrote, "His eyes were red and wet as he ended his news conference, his head and hands trembling slightly as he made his remarks."

-Original AP article can't be located, but here's the source. Crying in front of a whole bunch of journalists! What a super poor leader Rudy was!

Leadership does matter, you're right. Crying at peak moments of emotional strain doesn't.

and one that I've sure felt over the past several days.

My issue with Mary Landrieau at this point is her threatening of violence.  I understand she is emotional, but given all the violence that has gone on in NO the last 4 days, her comment does nothing to discourage more.

Tears, I'll give her a pass on.  Threatening to punch people, well, she ought to know better.

...but that point can easily be made -- as you just made it -- without (a) pretending that crying is unnatural for a leader or (b) dismissing history for a short-term political argument. That's the part of machiavel's gaggle of posts I found disturbing, the assumption that because a certain historical narrative -- leaders don't cry -- would fit his anti-Landrieu argument the best he felt it was safe to assume that was the actual history and not research it himself.

Interestingly enough, on Friday Fox showed Bush touring an area in MS, I believe, with two young black girls under each arm.  He hugged them both at least twice in the clip and kissed the smaller one on her head at least twice that I saw.  In the midst of it, you could see the tears welling in his eyes as he shook his head at all the destruction.  Sometimes, emotion can be a good thing.  It shows we are human.

quarterback.

Get your metaphors right.

Just noticed you found the same quote I was just going to post.

Nice job, needed to be said, too many incorrect quotes and source material floating around the blogs lately.

There are a whole bunch of dead bodies at all over New Orleans who dies of starvation and dehydration from not having food or water  for 4 days.  Go tell them that FEMA was "on time".

I can't imagine why you think that dead bodies are evidence of a FEMA failure. Everyone in emergency response knows that the local forces are supposed to be able to handle things for themselves until the feds arrive, which can take several days.

What I said was a simple fact. FEMA was on time. If you had any facts you would be bringing them out, instead of trying to obfuscate the issue with appeals to emotion.

In the very unlikely event that you actually care about the dead people, then you may want to start asking some hard question about the actions and inactions of Governor Blanco. Since you don't, you won't.

But another fact (I know you hate those) is that she refused to either take control of the situation herself or to step aside and let the feds handle it.

That is why people died as late as Thursday and Friday.

As to why New Orleans was not evacuated ahead of time, again that is a screwup at the local level.

If you can point me to any actual evidence that FEMA messed up and failed to meet its obligations, go ahead. It may even be true. In an operation of such huge scale there must have been problems somewhere. But nobody, least of all you, has yet neen able to make any kind of case for FEMA mismanagement.