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

And that hierarchical role is not just symbolic. It is conscribed by the Constitution, of course -- it has limits. But it is still the single most powerful governmental position in the country, and it carries enormous expectations. People don't expect the president to personally dam a river or pluck people off rooftops, but they expect him to respond quickly and strongly when a crisis hits that is clearly beyond the capacity of local communities to deal with. That's the whole point of having a chief. This is basic tribal code. A chief who fails to respond to his people when they're in danger, who neither protects nor rescues them, is going to be a chief with an unhappy tribe. So sure, the mayor and governor are going to have to answer to their particular constituencies, and they should.

But here's the real thing, Part II: If New York gets hit by a bomb or an earthquake or a crippling drought tomorrow, I'm not concerned about how Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco are going to respond. I'm not going to be calling them for help. Their level of competence and preparation are not going to be an issue for me. The same is sadly not true of Mssrs. Winkin, Blinkin and Nod down at FEMA and Homeland Screwity. Those guys are the ones I'm going to have to count on, just like the people in New Orleans did. So there's a reason for all Americans outside Louisiana to be a lot more worried about the federal response than the state and local, and it's not just about party politics. It's about who's going to be there when we need them.

a) has this gone to haliburton already? i read this, but wasnt sure if it was already the case

b) the poorer areas of new orleans, is that valuable real estate? if bulldozed, as unsafe now, i mean?

c) will poorer people be able to return, or will their homes be gone/replaced?

d) is there now a lot of money to be made, in the reconstruction?

check out what Al Gore's been up to this weekend.

i'm leaving now to go hear him speak at the Conv Center just south of here.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/images/taylorhurricanes.gif

kbr, halliburton's subsidiary, has a contract with the navy to rebuild/repair naval installations on the coast. it's not clear to me whether or not that contract existed pre-katrina.

b) the poorer areas of new orleans, is that valuable real estate? if bulldozed, as unsafe now, i mean?

valuable? not particularly. i'm not sure how one values real estate in new orleans now, nor whether that will really be a question anybody can answer until rebuilding.

c) will poorer people be able to return, or will their homes be gone/replaced?

the poorest parts of town were the worst hit, but i think it's still unclear whether there will be anything to return to, or whether housing can be replaced. there won't be any answers to the questions for a few months, i'm sure.

d) is there now a lot of money to be made, in the reconstruction?

probably, although the places that will have the most need reconstruction-wise might be the least attractive to builders.

FEMA Chief Waited Until After Storm Hit

By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago

The government's disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security employees to the region — and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.

Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged Tuesday the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged.

Brown's memo to Chertoff described Katrina as "this near catastrophic event" but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, "Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities."

The initial responses of the government and Brown came under escalating criticism as the breadth of destruction and death grew. President Bush and Congress on Tuesday pledged separate investigations into the federal response to Katrina. "Governments at all levels failed," said Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine.

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said Brown had positioned front-line rescue teams and Coast Guard helicopters before the storm. Brown's memo on Aug. 29 aimed to assemble the necessary federal work force to support the rescues, establish communications and coordinate with victims and community groups, Knocke said.

Instead of rescuing people or recovering bodies, these employees would focus on helping victims find the help they needed, he said.

"There will be plenty of time to assess what worked and what didn't work," Knocke said. "Clearly there will be time for blame to be assigned and to learn from some of the successful efforts."

Brown's memo told employees that among their duties, they would be expected to "convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public."

"FEMA response and recovery operations are a top priority of the department and as we know, one of yours," Brown wrote Chertoff. He proposed sending 1,000 Homeland Security Department employees within 48 hours and 2,000 within seven days.

Knocke said the 48-hour period suggested for the Homeland employees was to ensure they had adequate training. "They were training to help the life-savers," Knocke said.

Employees required a supervisor's approval and at least 24 hours of disaster training in Maryland, Florida or Georgia. "You must be physically able to work in a disaster area without refrigeration for medications and have the ability to work in the outdoors all day," Brown wrote.

The same day Brown wrote Chertoff, Brown also urged local fire and rescue departments outside Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi not to send trucks or emergency workers into disaster areas without an explicit request for help from state or local governments. Brown said it was vital to coordinate fire and rescue efforts.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (news, bio, voting record), D-Md., said Tuesday that Brown should step down.

After a senators-only briefing by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other Cabinet members, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (news, bio, voting record) said lawmakers weren't getting their questions answered.

"What people up there want to know, Democrats and Republicans, is what is the challenge ahead, how are you handling that and what did you do wrong in the past," said Schumer, D-N.Y.

Sen. Ted Stevens (news, bio, voting record), R-Alaska, said the administration is "getting a bad rap" for the emergency response.

"This is the largest disaster in the history of the United States, over an area twice the size of Europe," Stevens said. "People have to understand this is a big, big problem."

Meanwhile, the airline industry said the government's request for help evacuating storm victims didn't come until late Thursday afternoon. The president of the Air Transport Association, James May, said the Homeland Security Department called then to ask if the group could participate in an airlift for refugees.

___

On the Net:

Federal Emergency Management Agency: http://www.fema.gov

Homeland Security Department: http://www.dhs.gov

The memo from FEMA Director Mike Brown to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is available at: http://wid.ap.org/documents/dhskatrina.pdf

FEMA Chief Waited Until After Storm Hit

By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago

The government's disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security employees to the region — and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.

Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged Tuesday the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged.

Brown's memo to Chertoff described Katrina as "this near catastrophic event" but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, "Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities."

The initial responses of the government and Brown came under escalating criticism as the breadth of destruction and death grew. President Bush and Congress on Tuesday pledged separate investigations into the federal response to Katrina. "Governments at all levels failed," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said Brown had positioned front-line rescue teams and Coast Guard helicopters before the storm. Brown's memo on Aug. 29 aimed to assemble the necessary federal work force to support the rescues, establish communications and coordinate with victims and community groups, Knocke said.

Instead of rescuing people or recovering bodies, these employees would focus on helping victims find the help they needed, he said.

"There will be plenty of time to assess what worked and what didn't work," Knocke said. "Clearly there will be time for blame to be assigned and to learn from some of the successful efforts."

Brown's memo told employees that among their duties, they would be expected to "convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public."

"FEMA response and recovery operations are a top priority of the department and as we know, one of yours," Brown wrote Chertoff. He proposed sending 1,000 Homeland Security Department employees within 48 hours and 2,000 within seven days.

Knocke said the 48-hour period suggested for the Homeland employees was to ensure they had adequate training. "They were training to help the life-savers," Knocke said.

Employees required a supervisor's approval and at least 24 hours of disaster training in Maryland, Florida or Georgia. "You must be physically able to work in a disaster area without refrigeration for medications and have the ability to work in the outdoors all day," Brown wrote.

The same day Brown wrote Chertoff, Brown also urged local fire and rescue departments outside Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi not to send trucks or emergency workers into disaster areas without an explicit request for help from state or local governments. Brown said it was vital to coordinate fire and rescue efforts.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said Tuesday that Brown should step down.

After a senators-only briefing by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other Cabinet members, Sen. Charles E. Schumer said lawmakers weren't getting their questions answered.

"What people up there want to know, Democrats and Republicans, is what is the challenge ahead, how are you handling that and what did you do wrong in the past," said Schumer, D-N.Y.

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said the administration is "getting a bad rap" for the emergency response.

"This is the largest disaster in the history of the United States, over an area twice the size of Europe," Stevens said. "People have to understand this is a big, big problem."

Meanwhile, the airline industry said the government's request for help evacuating storm victims didn't come until late Thursday afternoon. The president of the Air Transport Association, James May, said the Homeland Security Department called then to ask if the group could participate in an airlift for refugees.

___

On the Net:

Federal Emergency Management Agency: http://www.fema.gov

Homeland Security Department: http://www.dhs.gov

The memo from FEMA Director Mike Brown to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is available at: http://wid.ap.org/documents/dhskatrina.pdf

Really?

(xpost)

Bush's reaction will be interesting.

this administration never properly deals with its incompetents. indeed, they are often rewarded with promotions or medals. my expectations are low...

Buckle your seat belts, The reconstruction and relief "effort" is going to be the biggest cronied up slush fund of all time. But hey, maybe some of those refugees can just apply for their contractors' license, steer a few grand to their Republican congressional candidate, and then lean on a shovel for the next 10 years while the checks roll in. That's the free market at work!

For those of you crafting menus at home, that's pork for major Republican donors, cake for people putting "Astrodome" as their current address on initial claims for unemployment insurance.

Really?

Nope, it was actually the size of West Germany.

Perhaps no city in the United States is in a better spot to turn Katrina's tragedy into opportunity. Long known for its commercial fervor, Houston, the largest city in the South with a metropolitan population of more than four million, has one of the busiest ports in the United States and remains unrivaled as a center for the energy industry.

Halliburton moved its headquarters to Houston from Dallas in 2003, joining dozens of companies based here that provide services for oil and natural gas producers.
Halliburton differs from many oil services companies in that it also does significant business with the federal government. Halliburton has a contract with the U.S. Navy, similar to its contracts in Iraq, that has already kept it busy after Hurricane Katrina. The company's Kellogg, Brown & Root unit was doing repairs and cleanup at three naval facilities in Mississippi last week.

Executives at other Houston companies said they were wasting little time in carrying out repairs in the Gulf of Mexico, where at least 20 offshore rigs and platforms are believed to be damaged or destroyed. Tetra Technologies, which repairs old platforms in the Gulf of Mexico or decommissions them, had employees in a helicopter the day after the storm passed to survey the damage.

"I always hate to talk about positives in a situation like this, but this is certainly a growth business over the next 6 to 12 months," said Geoffrey Hertel, the chief executive of Tetra. By Friday, Tetra had been able to send an 800-ton derrick barge it owns, the Arapaho, to the gulf to be used for platform repairs, Hertel said.

If the storm works to Houston's benefit, it would not be the first time a natural disaster of extraordinary size sparked some economic dynamism here.

The hurricane of 1900 in nearby Galveston, which killed more than 6,000 people and almost leveled the most thriving commercial city in the Southeast, paved the way for Houston, located 50 miles, or 80 kilometers, inland, to emerge as a regional center for shipping and oil refining.

The displacement of companies to Houston from New Orleans is an abrupt acceleration of a trend that has been going on for decades. Many large companies, particularly those in the energy business, have made that move over the years, leaving New Orleans more dependent on tourism and other service industries.

A surge of business activity in Houston might lift the fortunes of a city that is still struggling to recover from the collapse of Enron and two decades of job cuts in the energy industry.

That's when I start my finger-pointing, because a few days in and around this ground zero have convinced me that there are two things the federal government failed to do, and that for these failures there's ultimately no one to blame but the president.

First, an administration that since Sept. 11, 2001, has told us a major terrorist strike is inevitable should have had in place a well-elaborated plan for evacuating a major American city. Even if there wasn't a specific plan for New Orleans -- although it was clear that a breach of the city's levees was one of the likeliest natural catastrophes -- there should have been a generic plan. George W. Bush told us time and again that our cities were threatened. Shouldn't he have ordered up a plan to get people out?

Second, someone should have thought about what to do with hundreds of thousands of evacuees, both in the days after a disaster and in the long term. As people flooded out of New Orleans, it was officials at the state and local level who rose to the challenge, making it up as they went along. Bring a bunch of people to the Astrodome. We have a vacant hotel that we can use. Send a hundred or so down to our church and we'll do the best we can.

Hang around for the last graf of that one, it's a doozy.

in other news, Al Gore can be very funny when he wants to be. He still needs an editor, but still damn fine public speaking presence.

pics later.

Are you accusing them of miscounting hurricanes?

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml

When critics of the administration bring up the global warming issue in relation to Katrina, it only weakens their argument. Stick to the topic at hand.

Bit of bad planning, that.

so there was a few angry people turned away. Enough stuck around(incl. yrs truly) making noise that the organizers(the Oregon League of Conservation Voters) when and asked the former Vice President if he'd speak again, immediately afterwards. He agreed, so we got in line again for the 2 hour wait.

Photos here

1) It was inevitable that eventually New Orleans would get a category 4 hurricane. This is not a new mutant strain of hurricane, and they just happen to come around every so many years.

2) Much of the "disaster," at least in New Orleans, was not the direct result of the hurricane's strength (though it was indirectly) but of poor planning, weak levees, the geography and demography of New Orleans, and sheer incompetence on the part of the federal government.

3) Bush did not singlehandedly cause global warming, nor could he singlehandedly have any noticeable impact on it during his administration. Even if he had signed Kyoto the day he stepped into office, it would take a long long time before the impact would be felt, and it certainly wouldn't reverse global warming by itself.

So again, as much as I wish Bush would take greater heed of global warming, I think it's totally specious to make it one of the main issues here, when we're really talking about failures of leadership, disaster prevention, and crisis management.

and really, at this point, al gore? if democrats can't find a better figure to rally behind, we deserve to lose.

"...one must recognize that there are limits to what powers the federal government should exercise in a crisis. Yes, it is the right and duty of the president to override state drug policy, to determine who can or cannot marry, to indefinitely detain citizens without due process and to torture and kill prisoners as he sees fit, but disaster relief is a matter that should be left to the states. Yes, the images of the drowned, the diseased, and the desperately dying drove much of the country to outrage, but how much more outraged would America have been if FEMA had fed the Superdome refugees without the full oversight and authorization of the State of Louisiana? Had the president sent rescue helicopters to evacuate New Orleans the day the levees burst, he might have saved thousands of lives, but he would also have overstepped his authority - and if there's one thing George W. Bush refuses to countenance, it is abuse of power."

also see fafblog's Do-It-Yourself Emergency Management Guide!

!!!

Oh, very witty, Alfred. What incredible insight.