Katrina's POLITICAL aftermath (keep the political discussions HERE)

you think it would've made more sense for command-and-control elements to stay in the city? how would nagin be able to coordinate any relief or search and rescue efforts when city hall is underwater, there's no electricity or phone service, etc.?

--except in the context that this is such an ideal time to affix the majority of the blame to a weakened president.

you don't seem to get that people are not blaming bush because it's "an ideal time" to do so, but merely because he fucked up big. believe it or not, not everybody mad at the president right now is a dnc operative.

Buses and other resources weren't used, the contingency and emergency plans were minimal and insufficient. Nagin didn't have manpower, but he didn't have many ideas either.

honestly, we don't know for sure exactly what happened in terms of nagin and the city's response, aside from anecdotal stuff. hell, i don't think the nopd has a handle on where all of its officers are, still. we do know, however, that:

1. fema's response was inadequate given that the area was declared a disaster zone by bush before katrina hit
2. the bush administration had, over the past three years, cut funding to the corps of engineers - new orleans district

He had the idea to holler "HEEEEEELLLLLP!" He did that pretty well, which was all he could do past a point. Anyway, how New Orleanians feel about his handling of it will I'm sure become clear as we go on.

But look, this isn't just about affixing blame to a weakened president. That's somewhat backward. This is about a president who's been weakened by his ineffectiveness and persistent inability or refusal to recognize or address reality -- whether in foreign or domestic affairs -- once more demonstrating that incapacity to see things clearly and react accordingly. It's also about a gang of people who have spent 40-odd years reciting the mantra that "government is the problem, not the solution" failing to recognize that sometimes, government is actually supposed to be the solution. The free market ain't gonna evacuate any cities or shore up any levees, and I don't care what Grover Norquist says, repealing the estate tax is not a sensible response to the decimation of a metropolis.

Norquist is one of the main forces of evil that has influence in the government. There is also speculation that he's influencing government policy in the Middle East because of his Islamist connections.

again, i turned the radio off so i wouldn't smash it against the wall.

It'll probably be archived & online soon.

Though my favorite former president quote of the weekend is Clinton offering to assault Denny Hastert.

eh? what/when was this?

Re Hastert: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/02/AR2005090202156.html

"asymmetric" ("not fair")

heh.

I mean no one here is saying that Blanco is scott free. No one is saying that about any of Louisiana's elected officials. But they weren;t in the same kind of position FEMA is SUPPOSED to be in, are they?

the city of Louisiana!

xpost

I can't help but picture Darrell Hammond-as-Clinton saying this, with the requisite lower-lip-biting.

...Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, a racial and ethnic gumbo in the swamps ruled for over 60 years by the all-powerful Perez family. From the time Judge Leander Perez came to power in 1919, he made headlines across Louisiana and throughout the country. The Judge and his two sons clamped down on all political opposition, restricted free elections, disenfranchised black citizens, and made millions of dollars from oil. In the 50s and 60s Judge Perez became a national spokesman for racial segregation, bankrolling George Wallace and going so far as to outfit an old Civil War fort as a high security prison for any civil rights demonstrators who dared to venture into his county.

from james w. loewen's "lies across america":

Formal segregation has ended but the Perez legacy lives on in Plaquimines Parish: the median black income is just 40 percent of the median white income, one of the lowest ratios in the United States. The median white income is nothing to brag about, and this too is partly Perez's doing. It turns out that he was also dishonest, according to [his biographer] Jeansonne. In 1936 he came up with a scheme to rake in millions of dollars for himself and his family. At the time, as district attorney, he used his position as legal advisor to the Plaquemines levee boards to negotiate payoffs between corporations he set up and the big oil companies that leased the levee board lands for drilling. After his death in 1969, when his grip on the area finally relaxed, the parish sued his heirs seeking to reclaim an estimated $82 million paid wrongfully to the Perez family. The paper trail set up by Perez was tough to follow, however, and in 1987 the parish settled for $12 million.

Perez also ran st. bernard's parish, where my stepmom's family moved a few years back. his heirs were interviewed in the dallas morning news, saying that they'd have essentially no trouble moving back post-katrina.

So true. Like, as Rush Limbaugh pointed out, the way that ecoterrorists won't let us build refineries. If only our energy policy were driven by men of vision and principle and oil company blind trusts.

Its like DubyaCo is playing a really bad game of Missile Command.

Yeah, well, there are a lot of stupid pigheaded people in this country.

Where'd you get that he was hanging out in Baton Rouge? I believe his family and his office were in Baton Rouge, but all those images I saw of him seemed to be in New Orleans. But hey, some people party so much when they're in NO -or is it Houston?- that they really don't know what it looks like.

Yup, he spent almost all of the time at the Hyatt hotel next door to the Superdome-- which I believe is across the street from/extremely close to City Hall or something.

"anecdotal stuff"

This is an intesting cite to a July NO Times-Picayune article on the city's evacuation plan. What did the mayor do besides a dvd? A DVD?

In storm, N.O. wants no one left behind; Number of people without cars makes evacuation difficult By Bruce Nolan, Staff writer, New Orleans Times-Picayne, July 24, 2005:

City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans' poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own. In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation.

In the video, made by the anti-poverty agency Total Community Action, they urge those people to make arrangements now by finding their own ways to leave the city in the event of an evacuation. "You're responsible for your safety, and you should be responsible for the person next to you," Wilkins said in an interview. "If you have some room to get that person out of town, the Red Cross will have a space for that person outside the area. We can help you. "But we don't have the transportation."

Officials are recording the evacuation message even as recent research by the University of New Orleans indicated that as many as 60 percent of the residents of most southeast Louisiana parishes would remain in their homes in the event of a Category 3 hurricane. Their message will be distributed on hundreds of DVDs across the city. The DVDs' basic get-out-of-town message applies to all audiences, but the it is especially targeted to scores of churches and other groups heavily concentrated in Central City and other vulnerable, low-income neighborhoods, said the Rev. Marshall Truehill, head of Total Community Action. "The primary message is that eachperson is primarilyresponsibleforthemselves, for their own family and friends," Truehill said.

Just sayin' what needs to be said. Well, that and a dose of needed cynicism/sarcasm.

-- don weiner (dandydonweine...), September 6th, 2005.

Did you just say that about your own post? No wonder you only show up on political threads - I was discussing this the other day on FilePile, how some dudes lurk on largely lib-thinking boards and surface only for this kinda shit to 'spice it up' - I THINK I remember you participating in a regular thread about a regular topic somewhere sometime but I recall it coming out really unnaturally, like Small Wonder having sex. You shouldn't ever refer to yourself as a 'needed dose' of anything. It sounds like you're a male spa in its own TV ad.

Anyway, since my richness allows me to get the WSJ, I hereby piss on copyright laws. But seriously, I'm sure some genius over at DailyKos or Democratic Underground or MoveOn.org has already diaried this article into "accuracy."

Blame Amid the Tragedy
By BOB WILLIAMS
September 6, 2005; Page A28

As the devastation of Hurricane Katrina continues to shock and sadden the nation, the question on many lips is, Who is to blame for the inadequate response?

As a former state legislator who represented the legislative district most impacted by the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, I can fully understand and empathize with the people and public officials over the loss of life and property.

Many in the media are turning their eyes toward the federal government, rather than considering the culpability of city and state officials. I am fully aware of the challenges of having a quick and responsive emergency response to a major disaster. And there is definitely a time for accountability; but what isn't fair is to dump on the federal officials and avoid those most responsible -- local and state officials who failed to do their job as the first responders. The plain fact is, lives were needlessly lost in New Orleans due to the failure of Louisiana's governor, Kathleen Blanco, and the city's mayor, Ray Nagin.

The primary responsibility for dealing with emergencies does not belong to the federal government. It belongs to local and state officials who are charged by law with the management of the crucial first response to disasters. First response should be carried out by local and state emergency personnel under the supervision of the state governor and his/her emergency operations center.

The actions and inactions of Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin are a national disgrace due to their failure to implement the previously established evacuation plans of the state and city. Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin cannot claim that they were surprised by the extent of the damage and the need to evacuate so many people. Detailed written plans were already in place to evacuate more than a million people. The plans projected that 300,000 people would need transportation in the event of a hurricane like Katrina. If the plans had been implemented, thousands of lives would likely have been saved.

In addition to the plans, local, state and federal officials held a simulated hurricane drill 13 months ago, in which widespread flooding supposedly trapped 300,000 people inside New Orleans. The exercise simulated the evacuation of more than a million residents. The problems identified in the simulation apparently were not solved.

A year ago, as Hurricane Ivan approached, New Orleans ordered an evacuation but did not use city or school buses to help people evacuate. As a result many of the poorest citizens were unable to evacuate. Fortunately, the hurricane changed course and did not hit New Orleans, but both Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin acknowledged the need for a better evacuation plan. Again, they did not take corrective actions. In 1998, during a threat by Hurricane George, 14,000 people were sent to the Superdome and theft and vandalism were rampant due to inadequate security. Again, these problems were not corrected.

The New Orleans contingency plan is still, as of this writing, on the city's Web site, and states: "The safe evacuation of threatened populations is one of the principle [sic] reasons for developing a Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan." But the plan was apparently ignored.

Mayor Nagin was responsible for giving the order for mandatory evacuation and supervising the actual evacuation: His office of Emergency Preparedness (not the federal government) must coordinate with the state on elements of evacuation and assist in directing the transportation of evacuees to staging areas. Mayor Nagin had to be encouraged by the governor to contact the National Hurricane Center before he finally, belatedly, issued the order for mandatory evacuation. And sadly, it apparently took a personal call from the president to urge the governor to order the mandatory evacuation.

The city's evacuation plan states: "The city of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas." But even though the city has enough school and transit buses to evacuate 12,000 citizens per fleet run, the mayor did not use them. To compound the problem, the buses were not moved to high ground and were flooded. The plan also states that "special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific lifesaving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedures as needed." This was not done.

The evacuation plan warned that "if an evacuation order is issued without the mechanisms needed to disseminate the information to the affected persons, then we face the possibility of having large numbers of people either stranded and left to the mercy of a storm, or left in an area impacted by toxic materials." That is precisely what happened because of the mayor's failure.

Instead of evacuating the people, the mayor ordered the refugees to the Superdome and Convention Center without adequate security and no provisions for food, water and sanitary conditions. As a result people died, and there was even rape committed, in these facilities. Mayor Nagin failed in his responsibility to provide public safety and to manage the orderly evacuation of the citizens of New Orleans. Now he wants to blame Gov. Blanco and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In an emergency the first requirement is for the city's emergency center to be linked to the state emergency operations center. This was not done.

The federal government does not have the authority to intervene in a state emergency without the request of a governor. President Bush declared an emergency prior to Katrina hitting New Orleans, so the only action needed for federal assistance was for Gov. Blanco to request the specific type of assistance she needed. She failed to send a timely request for specific aid.

In addition, unlike the governors of New York, Oklahoma and California in past disasters, Gov. Blanco failed to take charge of the situation and ensure that the state emergency operation facility was in constant contact with Mayor Nagin and FEMA. It is likely that thousands of people died because of the failure of Gov. Blanco to implement the state plan, which mentions the possible need to evacuate up to one million people. The plan clearly gives the governor the authority for declaring an emergency, sending in state resources to the disaster area and requesting necessary federal assistance.

State legislators and governors nationwide need to update their contingency plans and the operation procedures for state emergency centers. Hurricane Katrina had been forecast for days, but that will not always be the case with a disaster (think of terrorist attacks). It must be made clear that the governor and locally elected officials are in charge of the "first response."

I am not attempting to excuse some of the delays in FEMA's response. Congress and the president need to take corrective action there, also. However, if citizens expect FEMA to be a first responder to terrorist attacks or other local emergencies (earthquakes, forest fires, volcanoes), they will be disappointed. The federal government's role is to offer aid upon request.

The Louisiana Legislature should conduct an immediate investigation into the failures of state and local officials to implement the written emergency plans. The tragedy is not over, and real leadership in the state and local government are essential in the months to come. More importantly, the hurricane season is still upon us, and local and state officials must stay focused on the jobs for which they were elected -- and not on the deadly game of passing the emergency buck.

posting because it actually made me laugh- I'm sure whoever they replace Brown with at FEMA is going to be barely better. Assuming that Bush & folks do replace him, as Ned noted earlier they don't seem to like firing folks around there.

wasn't this changed post-9/11?

The primary responsibility for dealing with emergencies does not belong to the federal government

POSTED UPTHREAD:

BUSH'S OWN PLAN: The 2004 National Response Plan explicitly states that, at times of
any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions, the federal government pre-empts local and state government in its responsibility to act quickly

President Bush declared an emergency prior to Katrina hitting New Orleans, so the only action needed for federal assistance was for Gov. Blanco to request the specific type of assistance she needed. She failed to send a timely request for specific aid.

i have a hard time believing that gov. blanco didn't send a "timely request" (wtf is that anyway?!?).

xpost hurting could you please repost the wsj article?