The Disaster effort: How do we grade it now? Posted by: McQ
on Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics issues a "Katrina Report Card". I agree with some of it and disagree with other parts of it.
Mayor Nagin:
Honestly, I admire Nagin's intensity and understand his frustration. It's too bad he didn't show the same sort of urgency in ordering and organizing the evacuation last week, because things might have turned out much different.
When you know that the city you lead is 1) below sea-level and built to withstand only a Category 3 storm and 2) is a very difficult place to evacuate based on past history and 3) is relying on what you yourself characterize as limited local resources to conduct such an operation, there is no excuse to wait until less than 24 hours to pull the trigger on ordering a mandatory evacuation when a Category 5 storm is bearing down on you. None.
When all is said and done I think we'll find that the greatest contributing factor in this tragedy was Mayor Nagin's lack of urgency on the front end and his inability to coordinate and execute an evacuation plan (even one that now looks in hindsight to have been seriously flawed) that got as many people out of New Orleans as possible.
I have to agree completely with this assessment. Lance, one of our frequent and respected commenters here, and also caught up in all this mess, has tried to temper our criticism of Nagin by pointing out that he's actually an improvement over the "machine Democrats" who've previously held the Mayor's job in New Orleans. With all due respect to Lance, that doesn't change the fact that he waited too late to call for an evacuation and he had no plan to actually assist that evacuation when he called it.
To me, that constitutes a serious dereliction of his duty.
Governor Blanco:
It's hard to find any redeeming qualities in Blanco's conduct during this entire affair. I haven't seen any reports on just how aggressively she mobilized state assets to prepare for and to assist the evacuation effort before Katrina struck, so perhaps details will emerge that will accrue to her credit - though frankly I will be surprised if that turns out to be true.
Since the hurricane hit Blanco's response has been a case study in lack of leadership; from projecting weakness and insecurity to squabbling over turf. The Governor has done little to leave the impression she has been either confident or competent in helping to manage this crisis. Again, I suspect this is an impression that will be confirmed by numerous examples once all the facts are in.
Again, Bevan captures my thoughts pretty well. Although there's much information yet to be known, my impression is of someone completely and utterly overwhelmed by the job. Note I didn't say the disaster. I said the job. You don't take 24 hours to make decisions in life and death situations.
And you also don't stubbornly hold on to control when you're failing your citizens just to maintain political viability. Two indicators of her lack of aggressiveness in the face of the disaster are the failure to introduce the National Guard into NO until thursday and her failure to commandeer and use the states school buses for transporting evacuees until late in the week. They also point to a lack of any plan.
Michael Brown:
He's got to go. The bottom line is that as the man in charge of coordinating federal relief efforts the results produced on his watch were simply not good enough. Again, we don't know all that went on behind the scenes so there may be a number of mitigating factors, but from what we have seen in the press Brown looks from the outset to have been extremely ineffective if not downright confused some of the time.
The other reason Brown should be fired is because he didn't belong as director of FEMA in the first place. As everyone knows by now, Brown got his original job as the General Counsel for FEMA because of a personal connection with Joe Allbaugh. That's fine, because at least Brown was qualified to hold that position. But lives aren't at stake when you're FEMA's lawyer, they are when you're FEMA's director. Joe Allbaugh bears a great deal of responsibility for promoting Brown to deputy director and for (I assume) recommending his appointment to director to President Bush.
Here Bevan and I have a disagreement. I'll grant that Brown looked like a deer in the headlights in the press. And he may even have to go. But his preformance on TV has nothing to do with the reality of the FEMA effort. Other than broad and sweeping generalities I haven't seen specific complaints which give me the information necessary to come to the conclusion that Bevan has ... yet. Bevan talks about politics and qualifications. This isn't about qualifications or politics. It's about performance. And I've not seen enough information to come to an informed conclusion on FEMA's performance yet.
If indeed the FEMA effort ends up being "too little too late", then I'll join the chorus. But to date I haven't seen enough to even warm up my pipes for the chorus. I will, however, be looking.
George Bush:
When you finish sifting through all of the partisan red herrings that have been thrown out to try and blame Bush for this catastrophe (budget cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers, budget cuts to and reorganization of FEMA, National Guard troops in Iraq, wetlands policy, global warming policy, and on and on) the President's main responsibility lies with the fact one of the members of his administration looks to have done a poor job of managing the federal government's portion of planning and responding to this crisis.
Note Bevan's wording. "looks to have done a poor job".
That's precisely where we are. We're hearing a lot of claims and counter claims about appearances but very few specifics and even fewer facts. Perception, is obviously important, and neither Brown or Chertoff have given the perception that they're on top of things. But that doesn't mean that the effort was poor or a failure.
Going on in his assessment of Bush:
As captain of the team, Bush is responsible for his players and he should have recognized sooner that Michael Brown was not getting the job done.
Having said that, it's worth noting that even a more competent, experienced FEMA director wouldn't have been able to stop the flooding or most likely to have foreseen the widespread looting and violence that followed and caused such havoc with rescue efforts. In fact, short of President Bush stepping in an using executive powers to order the National Guard to forcibly evacuate New Orleans (something I'm not sure is possible), a perfectly executed post-hurricane relief plan under the circumstances in New Orleans would have sped things up by maybe 24 hours. That's a lot of time in a crisis relief situation and certainly would have saved a few lives, but I'm not sure it would have drastically changed the dynamics of what we saw unfolding in New Orleans last week.
Again, is Brown not getting the job done? I don't really know? Nor, it appears, does anyone else. Bevan finally seems to come back to reality where he deals with the specifics of the disaster and the powers of both the president and FEMA in the face of this sort of a disaster. Its size and its magnitude are mind boggling. It's unprecedented. So has FEMA really screwed the pooch?
To this point I just don't have enough information to know.
Now that may be my fault, but I don't think so. Every single criticism I've read about Brown and FEMA have been long on accusations that Brown isn't qualified and generalities that FEMA has not done enough in a timely manner.
For instance, this critique in the LA Times. It begins with a bunch of generalities about budget cuts, quotes the author finds indicative of level of incompetence and uncaring he finds offensive and then states one of the most absurd premises yet:
In a crisis the federal government should be the first responder, not the last, to take charge, not wait to be asked.
How? Without dismantalling our Constitution and completely throwing state's rights and sovereignty out of the window, how? What part of how this nation is configured does the author not understand? Frankly, it appears he understands none of it.
So deep into this "the fed failed" article, we have no specifics but we have an premise which is diametrically opposed to the way we do business, never mind the fact that making the fed the "first responder" is absurd on its face.
He then spends more paragraphs pointing out that Chertoff and Brown appeared uninformed about certain aspects of the tragedy. OK. But what was going on on the ground? Was FEMA and the rest of the effort failing? We don't know. The entire focus of the condemnation here is how these two people seemed to appear on TV.
Two-thirds of the way into this article we actually and finally get into something which is almost specific:
But it bears sole responsibility for a crisis response that has been fairly labeled a national disgrace. FEMA drafted an action plan for a New Orleans flood: pre-position food, supplies and hospital ships for immediate deployment in the aftermath. Brown and Chertoff failed to implement it adequately, pleading that no one could have anticipated a disaster that had in fact been anticipated by engineers, geographers and political leaders for decades. As I write, the Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort remains moored in Baltimore, not to arrive off New Orleans until the end of this week.
Note the wording: "fairly labeled as a national disgrace". By whom? And by what means do they reach such a "fair label"?
And what does it mean to implement "it" adequately? The plan? How does one anticipate the magnitude of such a storm without experience with such a storm? Did this writer know it would be 90,000 square miles? All one can do is make some assumptions and act on them. They may prove to be wrong, but at least, in the case here, they had a plan, prepositioned food and supplies and deployed ships in the aftermath.
This is an important point too. The ships. We've already covered the fact that the USS Bataan was operating off the coast of LA on tuesday and had a 600 bed hospital capacity. That's totally ignored by the author. And, since the article was written on the 4th with a dateline of the 5th, he even gets it wrong about the hospital ship, Comfort. Per the DoD, the Comfort sailed two days before he wrote the article.
The USNS Comfort, a hospital ship, set sail Sept. 2 from Baltimore and is scheduled to arrive in the Gulf Coast Sept. 8, NORTHCOM officials reported.
And per the DoD, they've done much more on the medical side:
The military has provided 745 hospital beds at New Orleans International Airport, with additional beds available aboard USS Bataan and USS Iwo Jima and 500 more beds en route to New Orleans;
· The Air Force will provide an 85-bed mobile hospital unit and air logistics support at Alexandria Airport, La. , currently a staging area for rescue operations;
· Ten 250-bed Federal Medical Shelters have been established at DoD installations: two at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla; four at Fort Polk, La.; and four at Meridian Naval Air Station, Miss.; and
· DoD medical personnel have treated more than 5,000 patients to date.
That's it. Those are the only "specifics" the author of the LAT article offers. And, they're wrong.
He then turns to the old tired canards so comfortable to the true believers on the left:
President Bush will surely feel the consequences of his dereliction. Every policy of his administration will be viewed through the prism of the debacle of New Orleans. The pursuit of a personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein, supported by manipulated intelligence, has sucked billions out of the treasury and removed more than 30% of Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard members from their homes, so they must watch the disaster unfold from half a world away instead of assisting their own communities. Tax cuts for the wealthy have been financed by budget cuts for disaster preparedness and other crucial programs.
This is what is passing for credible criticism of the federal effort right now.
So at the risk of being accused of being a 'shill for Bush', I'd ask, where is the specific criticism of the federal effort. Where are the facts? Show me how they've failed or the effort has not been good enough.
They may very well have dropped the ball, but critiqes which contain blasts about the quailifications of office holders, how they appear on TV, and are premised by the idea that the fed should be the "first responder" while getting what few facts and specifics they include in the critique wrong (while ignoring other specifics which mitigate their charges), just don't impress me very much.
As we study this disaster, let us see why the disaster response required that every one in the command chain make an immediate, correct analysis of the situation and take that action, within the law, that would be unarguably the best action to take. Any law that works only if everything is perfect is a really stupid law. A system that falls apart if any single component fails is a bad, bad system. Bad systems are the fault of bad designers. Congress, in the comfort and ease of your offices, rewrite the laws so as to make the best use of whatever information, people and materials are at hand. Make those laws with the knowledge that perfection is the enemy of good enough. Until congress is perfect it is hypocritical for them to demand perfection of others.
Stopped trucks from delivering supplies. Cut phonelines of Parrish. Notified Charlestown, SC to expect people, sent the people to Charlestown, WV. Didn’t know people were in the convention center until days after the media did. Etc Etc Etc
The guy couldn’t even manage the judges of Arabian horses, he clearly isn’t qualified for the job. In paper or in reality.
Willis; The system fell apart because the system wasn’t followed by Nagin and Blanco. Most of Nagin’s complaints about the federal response... (Essentially, "Where the hell were they?") ...suggests he either didn’t read or didn’t understand the federal plan he was subject to.
One cannot judge a system a failure if the system isn’t follwed by all the parties. Sorry, there’s no escape for Democrats in THAT direction.
Much of what’s written by the right-wing ignores the elephant in the room. Purposefully, and for political motives. It’s not going to do one good thing towards the chances (right now, slim and none) that when a terror attack comes along, the victims will actually receive the expedited federal aid mandated by Homeland Security’s own National Response Plan. Said plan places a fiduciary duty on the President to oversee and command all federal efforts to ameliorate the suffering of victims.
As far as who was in charge, the National Response Plan of Homeland Security, signed by President Bush in 2004, clearly states:
Quote: "ALL PRESIDENTIALLY DECLARED DISASTERS AND EMERGENCIES UNDER THE STAFFORD ACT ARE CONSIDERED INCIDENTS OF NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE." (NRP, 7)
At such point a disaster or emergency is declared, according to the NRP, the federal government can and has a duty to supercede protocol when it means preservation of life and assets:
Quote: Federal departments and agencies are EXPECTED to provide:
* initial and/or ongoing response, when warranted, under their own authority and funding;
* alert, notification, pre-positioning and timely delivery of resources;
* proactive support for catastrophic or potentially catastrophic incidents using protocols for expedited delivery of resources. (NRP, 6)
Notification and full coordination with States will occur, but the coordination process must not delay or impede the rapid deployment and use of critical resources.
Also, troop deployment issues are covered:
Quote: The Secretary of Defense authorizes Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) for domestic incidents as directed by the President or when consistent with military readiness operations and appropriate under the circumstances and the law.
And covers the issue of immediate action:
Quote: Imminently serious conditions resulting from any civil emergency may require immediate action to save lives, prevent human suffering, or to mitigate property damage.
Finally, the NRP gives the President a fiduciary duty during said times of crisis:
Quote: "The President leads the Nation in responding efficiently and ensuring the necessary resources are applied quickly and effectively to all Incidents of National Significance." (NHP, 15)
Google the National Response Plan. That will explain to you why the federal government can, and has in the past, superceded state and local officials in times of national disaster.
Well McQ, in effect, you are shilling for Bush. When you shill for the truth and doggedly insist on facts to back up liberal accusations you are letting hot air out of the impeachment balloon the left is trying to inflate. If you would just take the position of “Hmmmm, there may be something to what you are saying.” the liberals can build a house of cards that will look to the unquestioning observer like Fort Knox. The MSM is on board, the rinos will go along, and their unquestioning air-head legions will buy it and pass it on. But they cannot stitch the big balloon together if people such as yourself keep pointing out the lies and flaws. In that respect you are shilling for Bush. They cannot see it any other way. I think you are the very voice of reason. Unfortunately, that makes you the enemy of modern liberalism.
McQ nails the ESSENTIAL point. First responders (eg, Nagin and Blanco) have to hold out for 72-96 hours. Period. We may want it to be quicker, we may, in fact, DEMAND that it be quicker (and will then have to fund the commensurate bill to make it happen), but such a "waiting period" doesn’t strike me as at all unreasonable.
I’ve had a long-running argument with a guy at another blog who keeps insisting that the local/state response has nothing to do with how we grade the Feds. I have insisted that that is grossly unfair because the failure of local and state response has greatly exacerbated the scale of the Federal response. The simplest and only necessary proof of this? The evacuation. Had Nagin/Blanco followed the plan, and truly made a mandatory evacuation MANDATORY, the Federal response would have been focused on restoring infrastructure and NOT on search-and-rescue, a vastly more complicated affair.
And, by the way, this wasn’t a failure of Federalism...it was a failure of leadership. This is why Rudy Giuliani will be our next president.
Because it’s obvious to one and all that the Federal Government always has a much better grasp of conditions within a state or city than the state or city government itself does. Or so the nitwits who bring up this document would have you to believe.
He also mentions the Wal-Mart trucks being stopped.
Not knowing about the Convention Center does speak to the inability for Brown to be on top of the situation. Which, as the leader of the effort, is necessary.
As the Duke students mentioned. The second FEMA seals off the city, it becomes their full responsibility to get people out. If you are going to say nobody can come in or leave without your permission, you take the blame for people not getting out or coming in.
While in fact you are OT, your claims have become the rallying point for the left in terms of the Federal responsibilities. However, as usual (and done by both parties), you are either purposely or due to unverified repetition, guilty of your own admonition: to read the text of the National Response Plan. Given that the document in full it 426 pages and I have a job, I have yet to make it through the whole thing. However, the salient points do come in the early portions. While I won’t quote every relevant piece to you nor will I make a line by line refutation, here are the essential pieces of facts, or text, that are missing from your attempted argument: a: The document is dated December 2004. Page 11 describes the implementation of the plan. To summarize: Phase I-Transitional Period 0-60 days, Phase II-Plan Modification 60-120 days, Phase III-Initial Implementation and Testing 120 days - 1 year. Phase III states: Four months after its issuance, the NRP is to be fully implemented, and the INRP, FRP, CONPLAN, and FRERP are superseded. Other existing plans remain in effect, modified to align with the NRP.
Note the last sentence. Other existing plans remain in effect. The City of NO had a plan as did the State of LA but failed to implement them as written.
Next, II. Planning Assumption and Considerations. The NRP is based on the planning assumptions and considerations presented in this section. ¦ Incidents are typically managed at the lowest possible geographic, organizational, and jurisdictional level.
As well: Overwhelm capabilities of State, local, and tribal governments, and private-sector infrastructure owners and operators;
Clearly, we see the first responsibility here lies with the local/state governments.
Finally (again, I have not finished the entire document): III. Roles and Responsibilities
When State resources and capabilities are overwhelmed, Governors may request Federal assistance under a Presidential disaster or emergency declaration.
It details the responsibilities of local/state government as well. Here are the relevant areas:
Governor As a State’s chief executive, the Governor is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that State or territory. The Governor: ¦ Is responsible for coordinating State resources to address the full spectrum of actions to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents in an all-hazards context to include terrorism, natural disasters, accidents, and other contingencies; ¦ Under certain emergency conditions, typically has police powers to make, amend, and rescind orders and regulations; ¦ Provides leadership and plays a key role in communicating to the public and in helping people, businesses, and organizations cope with the consequences of any type of declared emergency within State jurisdiction; ¦ Negotiates and enters into mutual aid agreements with other jurisdictions to facilitate resource-sharing; Is the Commander-in-Chief of State military forces (National Guard when in State Active Duty or Title 32 Status and the authorized State militias); and ¦ Requests Federal assistance when it becomes clear that State or tribal capabilities will be insufficient or have been exceeded or exhausted
Local Executive Officer (Mayor)
A mayor or city or county manager, as a jurisdiction’s chief executive, is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that jurisdiction. The Local Chief Executive Officer: ¦ Is responsible for coordinating local resources to address the full spectrum of actions to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents involving all hazards including terrorism, natural disasters, accidents, and other contingencies; ¦ Dependent upon State and local law, has extraordinary powers to suspend local laws and ordinances, such as to establish a curfew, direct evacuations, and, in coordination with the local health authority, to order a quarantine; ¦ Provides leadership and plays a key role in communicating to the public, and in helping people, businesses, and organizations cope with the consequences of any type of domestic incident within the jurisdiction; ¦ Negotiates and enters into mutual aid agreements with other jurisdictions to facilitate resource-sharing; Is the Commander-in-Chief of State military forces (National Guard when in State Active Duty or Title 32 Status and the authorized State militias); and ¦ Requests Federal assistance when it becomes clear that State or tribal capabilities will be insufficient or have been exceeded or exhausted.
Again, this is only the beginning but it quite clearly states the responsibilities of local officials. Based on what we all have seen (and as pointed out earlier all the facts are certainly not in yet) it does not appear that the local and state officials met the responsibilities laid out to them.
You can find the entire document here: http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRP_FullText.pdf
I apologize for the length of the post but it disgusts me when someone decides to pick and choose portions of a document to suit their needs and disregards the rest of the document.
While in fact you are OT, your claims have become the rallying point for the left in terms of the Federal responsibilities. However, as usual (and done by both parties), you are either purposely or due to unverified repetition, guilty of your own admonition: to read the text of the National Response Plan. Given that the document in full it 426 pages and I have a job, I have yet to make it through the whole thing. However, the salient points do come in the early portions. While I won’t quote every relevant piece to you nor will I make a line by line refutation, here are the essential pieces of facts, or text, that are missing from your attempted argument: a: The document is dated December 2004. Page 11 describes the implementation of the plan. To summarize: Phase I-Transitional Period 0-60 days, Phase II-Plan Modification 60-120 days, Phase III-Initial Implementation and Testing 120 days - 1 year. Phase III states: Four months after its issuance, the NRP is to be fully implemented, and the INRP, FRP, CONPLAN, and FRERP are superseded. Other existing plans remain in effect, modified to align with the NRP.
Note the last sentence. Other existing plans remain in effect. The City of NO had a plan as did the State of LA but failed to implement them as written.
Next, II. Planning Assumption and Considerations. The NRP is based on the planning assumptions and considerations presented in this section. ¦ Incidents are typically managed at the lowest possible geographic, organizational, and jurisdictional level.
As well: Overwhelm capabilities of State, local, and tribal governments, and private-sector infrastructure owners and operators;
Clearly, we see the first responsibility here lies with the local/state governments.
Finally (again, I have not finished the entire document): III. Roles and Responsibilities
When State resources and capabilities are overwhelmed, Governors may request Federal assistance under a Presidential disaster or emergency declaration.
It details the responsibilities of local/state government as well. Here are the relevant areas:
Governor As a State’s chief executive, the Governor is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that State or territory. The Governor: ¦ Is responsible for coordinating State resources to address the full spectrum of actions to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents in an all-hazards context to include terrorism, natural disasters, accidents, and other contingencies; ¦ Under certain emergency conditions, typically has police powers to make, amend, and rescind orders and regulations; ¦ Provides leadership and plays a key role in communicating to the public and in helping people, businesses, and organizations cope with the consequences of any type of declared emergency within State jurisdiction; ¦ Negotiates and enters into mutual aid agreements with other jurisdictions to facilitate resource-sharing; Is the Commander-in-Chief of State military forces (National Guard when in State Active Duty or Title 32 Status and the authorized State militias); and ¦ Requests Federal assistance when it becomes clear that State or tribal capabilities will be insufficient or have been exceeded or exhausted
Local Executive Officer (Mayor)
A mayor or city or county manager, as a jurisdiction’s chief executive, is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that jurisdiction. The Local Chief Executive Officer: ¦ Is responsible for coordinating local resources to address the full spectrum of actions to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents involving all hazards including terrorism, natural disasters, accidents, and other contingencies; ¦ Dependent upon State and local law, has extraordinary powers to suspend local laws and ordinances, such as to establish a curfew, direct evacuations, and, in coordination with the local health authority, to order a quarantine; ¦ Provides leadership and plays a key role in communicating to the public, and in helping people, businesses, and organizations cope with the consequences of any type of domestic incident within the jurisdiction; ¦ Negotiates and enters into mutual aid agreements with other jurisdictions to facilitate resource-sharing; Is the Commander-in-Chief of State military forces (National Guard when in State Active Duty or Title 32 Status and the authorized State militias); and ¦ Requests Federal assistance when it becomes clear that State or tribal capabilities will be insufficient or have been exceeded or exhausted.
Again, this is only the beginning but it quite clearly states the responsibilities of local officials. Based on what we all have seen (and as pointed out earlier all the facts are certainly not in yet) it does not appear that the local and state officials met the responsibilities laid out to them.
You can find the entire document here: http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRP_FullText.pdf
I apologize for the length of the post but it disgusts me when someone decides to pick and choose portions of a document to suit their needs and disregards the rest of the document.
While in fact you are OT, your claims have become the rallying point for the left in terms of the Federal responsibilities. However, as usual (and done by both parties), you are either purposely or due to unverified repetition, guilty of your own admonition: to read the text of the National Response Plan. Given that the document in full it 426 pages and I have a job, I have yet to make it through the whole thing. However, the salient points do come in the early portions. While I won’t quote every relevant piece to you nor will I make a line by line refutation, here are the essential pieces of facts, or text, that are missing from your attempted argument: a: The document is dated December 2004. Page 11 describes the implementation of the plan. To summarize: Phase I-Transitional Period 0-60 days, Phase II-Plan Modification 60-120 days, Phase III-Initial Implementation and Testing 120 days - 1 year. Phase III states: Four months after its issuance, the NRP is to be fully implemented, and the INRP, FRP, CONPLAN, and FRERP are superseded. Other existing plans remain in effect, modified to align with the NRP.
Note the last sentence. Other existing plans remain in effect. The City of NO had a plan as did the State of LA but failed to implement them as written.
Next, II. Planning Assumption and Considerations. The NRP is based on the planning assumptions and considerations presented in this section. ¦ Incidents are typically managed at the lowest possible geographic, organizational, and jurisdictional level.
As well: Overwhelm capabilities of State, local, and tribal governments, and private-sector infrastructure owners and operators;
Clearly, we see the first responsibility here lies with the local/state governments.
Finally (again, I have not finished the entire document): III. Roles and Responsibilities
When State resources and capabilities are overwhelmed, Governors may request Federal assistance under a Presidential disaster or emergency declaration.
It details the responsibilities of local/state government as well. Here are the relevant areas:
Governor As a State’s chief executive, the Governor is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that State or territory. The Governor: ¦ Is responsible for coordinating State resources to address the full spectrum of actions to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents in an all-hazards context to include terrorism, natural disasters, accidents, and other contingencies; ¦ Under certain emergency conditions, typically has police powers to make, amend, and rescind orders and regulations; ¦ Provides leadership and plays a key role in communicating to the public and in helping people, businesses, and organizations cope with the consequences of any type of declared emergency within State jurisdiction; ¦ Negotiates and enters into mutual aid agreements with other jurisdictions to facilitate resource-sharing; Is the Commander-in-Chief of State military forces (National Guard when in State Active Duty or Title 32 Status and the authorized State militias); and ¦ Requests Federal assistance when it becomes clear that State or tribal capabilities will be insufficient or have been exceeded or exhausted
Local Executive Officer (Mayor)
A mayor or city or county manager, as a jurisdiction’s chief executive, is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that jurisdiction. The Local Chief Executive Officer: ¦ Is responsible for coordinating local resources to address the full spectrum of actions to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents involving all hazards including terrorism, natural disasters, accidents, and other contingencies; ¦ Dependent upon State and local law, has extraordinary powers to suspend local laws and ordinances, such as to establish a curfew, direct evacuations, and, in coordination with the local health authority, to order a quarantine; ¦ Provides leadership and plays a key role in communicating to the public, and in helping people, businesses, and organizations cope with the consequences of any type of domestic incident within the jurisdiction; ¦ Negotiates and enters into mutual aid agreements with other jurisdictions to facilitate resource-sharing; Is the Commander-in-Chief of State military forces (National Guard when in State Active Duty or Title 32 Status and the authorized State militias); and ¦ Requests Federal assistance when it becomes clear that State or tribal capabilities will be insufficient or have been exceeded or exhausted.
Again, this is only the beginning but it quite clearly states the responsibilities of local officials. Based on what we all have seen (and as pointed out earlier all the facts are certainly not in yet) it does not appear that the local and state officials met the responsibilities laid out to them.
You can find the entire document here: http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRP_FullText.pdf
I apologize for the length of the post but it disgusts me when someone decides to pick and choose portions of a document to suit their needs and disregards the rest of the document.
While in fact you are OT, your claims have become the rallying point for the left in terms of the Federal responsibilities. However, as usual (and done by both parties), you are either purposely or due to unverified repetition, guilty of your own admonition: to read the text of the National Response Plan. Given that the document in full it 426 pages and I have a job, I have yet to make it through the whole thing. However, the salient points do come in the early portions. While I won’t quote every relevant piece to you nor will I make a line by line refutation, here are the essential pieces of facts, or text, that are missing from your attempted argument: a: The document is dated December 2004. Page 11 describes the implementation of the plan. To summarize: Phase I-Transitional Period 0-60 days, Phase II-Plan Modification 60-120 days, Phase III-Initial Implementation and Testing 120 days - 1 year. Phase III states: Four months after its issuance, the NRP is to be fully implemented, and the INRP, FRP, CONPLAN, and FRERP are superseded. Other existing plans remain in effect, modified to align with the NRP.
Note the last sentence. Other existing plans remain in effect. The City of NO had a plan as did the State of LA but failed to implement them as written.
Next, II. Planning Assumption and Considerations. The NRP is based on the planning assumptions and considerations presented in this section. ¦ Incidents are typically managed at the lowest possible geographic, organizational, and jurisdictional level.
As well: Overwhelm capabilities of State, local, and tribal governments, and private-sector infrastructure owners and operators;
Clearly, we see the first responsibility here lies with the local/state governments.
Finally (again, I have not finished the entire document): III. Roles and Responsibilities
When State resources and capabilities are overwhelmed, Governors may request Federal assistance under a Presidential disaster or emergency declaration.
It details the responsibilities of local/state government as well. Here are the relevant areas:
Governor As a State’s chief executive, the Governor is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that State or territory. The Governor: ¦ Is responsible for coordinating State resources to address the full spectrum of actions to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents in an all-hazards context to include terrorism, natural disasters, accidents, and other contingencies; ¦ Under certain emergency conditions, typically has police powers to make, amend, and rescind orders and regulations; ¦ Provides leadership and plays a key role in communicating to the public and in helping people, businesses, and organizations cope with the consequences of any type of declared emergency within State jurisdiction; ¦ Negotiates and enters into mutual aid agreements with other jurisdictions to facilitate resource-sharing; Is the Commander-in-Chief of State military forces (National Guard when in State Active Duty or Title 32 Status and the authorized State militias); and ¦ Requests Federal assistance when it becomes clear that State or tribal capabilities will be insufficient or have been exceeded or exhausted
Local Executive Officer (Mayor)
A mayor or city or county manager, as a jurisdiction’s chief executive, is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that jurisdiction. The Local Chief Executive Officer: ¦ Is responsible for coordinating local resources to address the full spectrum of actions to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents involving all hazards including terrorism, natural disasters, accidents, and other contingencies; ¦ Dependent upon State and local law, has extraordinary powers to suspend local laws and ordinances, such as to establish a curfew, direct evacuations, and, in coordination with the local health authority, to order a quarantine; ¦ Provides leadership and plays a key role in communicating to the public, and in helping people, businesses, and organizations cope with the consequences of any type of domestic incident within the jurisdiction; ¦ Negotiates and enters into mutual aid agreements with other jurisdictions to facilitate resource-sharing; Is the Commander-in-Chief of State military forces (National Guard when in State Active Duty or Title 32 Status and the authorized State militias); and ¦ Requests Federal assistance when it becomes clear that State or tribal capabilities will be insufficient or have been exceeded or exhausted.
Again, this is only the beginning but it quite clearly states the responsibilities of local officials. Based on what we all have seen (and as pointed out earlier all the facts are certainly not in yet) it does not appear that the local and state officials met the responsibilities laid out to them.
You can find the entire document here: http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRP_FullText.pdf
I apologize for the length of the post but it disgusts me when someone decides to pick and choose portions of a document to suit their needs and disregards the rest of the document.
It depends on which trucks you are talking about. If you are referring to the Wal-Mart trucks referenced by Aaron Broussard on Meet the Press, the trucks were resent somewhere else that needed them more badly (as determined by FEMA). Is that a failure?
Rodub, my prior comment was meant to be funny. I do, however, see a serious point in your comment. It is Liberal SOP to read a document only until something shows up that supports what they want to say. They then quote that document authoritatively, not even having read the balance, much less understood it. To them, it is only the stupid, plodding right that bogs down in reality and the truth. One needs to appreciate "nuance" and creativity to be a liberal. Liberals never let facts get in the way of telling the "right" "fair" and "just" story. Your comment appears to illustrate an example. I say "appears to" because I have not read the document and, in fact, I am not even familiar with the particular facts. If I were a liberal, I would be loudly declaiming to all and sundry that your reading and citation of this purported document was God’s truth, since it seems to support my pre-existing belief. I also appreciate your effort in giving the lie to another liberal fantasy. Unfortunately, there appears to be an endless supply.
Not knowing about the Convention Center does speak to the inability for Brown to be on top of the situation. Which, as the leader of the effort, is necessary.
OR... It could be that Nagin and Blanco didn’t tell Brown that they diverted people to the Convention Center. When state & local officials are telling the folks "Go to the Morial Center" and telling FEMA "We sent everyone to the Superdome", then ... it’s FEMA’s fault, right?!?
I knew. My coworkers knew. Every reporter knew. You are telling me, CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, and almost every American knew, but Brown didn’t know because Nagin and Blanco didn’t tell him? Please.
If you guys want to continue to try to protect Bush and Brown, then fine. Blame only the local government, who regardless of evacuation and planning would have been overwhelmed by this disaster, and hope that a disaster doesn’t hit your neck of the woods.
In my opinion, the question is about leadership. Bush is the leader of this country and Brown is the leader of the force that protects us after disasters. If Brown wasn’t in the know, he should make himself in the know. Conference Blanco and Nagin in. Clearly CNN and the other networks were able to get in touch with them.
If when asked the question, "how could this happen in America?" Bush is okay with answering "state and local government failed us, it isn’t MY fault". Then fine. That is a human reaction and is an accetable response by most people. Just not the President. Either Bush is in control or he isn’t.
Uh, Bill: South Louisiana IS my neck of the woods. In fact, I’m here right now.
There was no mention of the Morial Center as Evacuation Point until Wednesday. I watched EVERY press conference that weekend, what with my house being in the line of fire and all. They ALL said "Go to the Superdome". It wasn’t until CNN ran their "Wheelchair by the Door" report on Wednesday morning that anyone knew people were at the Convention Center.
From someone who’s here, I can say that Brown/FEMA’s biggest mistake was to keep playing the "The Cavalry’s coming" card. Anyone with a hint of knowledge of logistics knew it would be 72-96 hours until the Feds could do anything of substance. That’s why we have first responders, don’tcha know: to respond FIRST. And those first responders kept getting told "The Cavalry’s coming" so they slacked off thinking they wouldn’t have to do their jobs. How wrong they were.
So at the risk of being accused of being a ’shill for Bush’, I’d ask, where is the specific criticism of the federal effort. Where are the facts? Show me how they’ve failed or the effort has not been good enough.
There are rocks and there are big rocks. You must be living under one of the latter. So many examples. Here is one:
Article Last Updated: 9/06/2005 02:04 AM
Frustrated: Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA
By Lisa Rosetta The Salt Lake Tribune Salt Lake Tribune
ATLANTA - Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?" As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta. Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers. Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA. On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.
Now, the mayor says he needs firefighters. These people are trained to do exactly that. FEMA won’t use them for that. But here is what they will use them for:
"There are all of these guys with all of this training and we’re sending them out to hand out a phone number," an Oregon firefighter said. "They [the hurricane victims] are screaming for help and this day [of FEMA training] was a waste." Firefighters say they want to brave the heat, the debris-littered roads, the poisonous cottonmouth snakes and fire ants and travel into pockets of Louisiana where many people have yet to receive emergency aid. But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew’s first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.
"Until the Governor says otherwise, Bush isn’t and shouldn’t be in control."
Let’s step back to Saturday, August 27
GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: “I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.” [Office of the Governor] http://www.gov.state.la.us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=976
FEDERAL EMERGENCY DECLARED, DHS AND FEMA GIVEN FULL AUTHORITY TO RESPOND TO KATRINA: “Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.” [White House] http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050827-1.html
So....as of August 27th the pres authorized the DHS and FEMA to coordinate ALL disaster relief efforts..
Well on the 27th of August the White House released a statement saying FEMA was in control as of the 26th: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050827-1.html
"The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.
The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe"
So, you saw it on Wednesday morning, eh? Well here is Michael Brown on Friday:
"We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need."
"I learned about it listening to the news reports"
So, FEMA was only a day behind YOU is what you are saying? And that to you is acceptable?
Mass looting was reported on Wednesday as well and on Thursday at around 2:00 he stated:
"I’ve had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they’re banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I’ve had no reports of that."
"The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.
The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe"
These seem to me to point out that local resources are what the feds are supporting.
So, you say the local government f’s up. The release states that the federal government will coordinate all efforts to pick up the slack.
So, what is it? Did the federal government not do its job by supplementing or not do its job by not recognizing the supplementing was needed?
You think Michael Brown has done a wonderful job. You think the Federal Government has done everything in its power to help and did it in the most timely matter. You think that it could not have been done better on a federal level.
Let’s hope we don’t have another terrorist attack then, because as Olbermann noted, the government has shown it can’t respond to at least one biological attack for at least four days: Standing water.
So, you say the local government f’s up. The release states that the federal government will coordinate all efforts to pick up the slack.
So, what is it? Did the federal government not do its job by supplementing or not do its job by not recognizing the supplementing was needed?
You think Michael Brown has done a wonderful job. You think the Federal Government has done everything in its power to help and did it in the most timely matter. You think that it could not have been done better on a federal level.
Let’s hope we don’t have another terrorist attack then, because as Olbermann noted, the government has shown it can’t respond to at least one biological attack for at least four days: Standing water.
Well, I’m not in a position to defend FEMA, but I’ll pass along another part of the story from the Seattle PI:
Tony Russell, the Federal Emergency Management Agency official in charge of the firefighters, said he is trying to get them deployed as fast as he can but wants to make certain they are sent where the need is greatest.
When FEMA called for 2,000 firefighters from across the country, it made it clear the mission was one of community service and outreach - not firefighting, Russell said.
Russell said it takes at least two days to process and train the volunteers, who continue to arrive each day in Atlanta for FEMA training. Some 500 firefighters have been sent to needy areas and hundreds more await their marching orders, he said.
In the meantime, the firefighters...have received vaccines and specialized training, including classes on sexual harassment, the history of FEMA and how to deal with ethnic groups.
It seems to me much of this training is due to liberal PC requirements. We wouldn’t want the firefighters to offend anyone, right?
I am here too and maybe (does tempering criticism of Nagin keep me from being a shill?) Brown should have been spending his time monitoring TV reports than doing his job. However, while the time gazing at Geraldo and crew might have picked up on the convention center, he would also be neglecting something else, or worse, listening to Aaron Broussard, the lying little toad (I told you guys he was lying, I am glad that has now been shown at least on a couple of things) and chasing after mysterious Wal Mart trucks and other nonsense rumours the media has been repeating. Or maybe he could have the state and local government actually tell him about it like they are supposed to, or maybe what you meant was he was supposed to have walked the entire downtown on foot personally to find every survivor himself? His job is to assess what is needed and send it. He cannot be a mindreader. I know, it is his job to find out you say, except it isn’t. He is to coordinate and assist. Now he will probably never make the mistake again, but I doubt it ever occured to him that when he asked for where he needed to send men and resources that the locals wouldn’t tell him about a major evacuation shelter filled with thousands of people. Maybe Nagin (or whoever he delegated the task to) assumed like yourself Brown was busy gazing at the coiffed hair of Brian Williams but my guess is they just screwed up.
So, given all this might have happened 24 hours earlier had Brown and FEMA gone all Mussolini on our state and seized control, exactly how long is FEMA supposed to work with us down here before sending in the blackshirts? I would think at least a day. So even with all the delays, then appointing some poobah like Giuliani to run roughshod over the Aaaron Broussard’s of the world, if the decision to throw out the way our government has pretty much always handled these things had taken more than a few hours we would be essentially where we are now.
I am with you McQ. Brown may have screwed up, but given all the screw ups at the local level I am not sure how you can tell, other than some people just want to hang him because they think it hurts Bush. I have more to say, but I don’t have time now.
The only "screw up" of Brown’s that I’m aware of was the mistake of doing several press conferences early in the crisis commenting on how fabulous everything was going, while any viewer could switch the channel and see that New Orleans had reverted to the Stone Age.
Darth Brown was probably basing his assessment on the information provided by local and state officials, instead of using his Jedi mind powers to determine the actual state of affairs.
So now the local government was giving Brown cheery reports? Who would that have been? It certainly wasn’t Nagin who was busy screaming to high heaven on radio and TV.
So now the local government was giving Brown cheery reports? Who would that have been? It certainly wasn’t Nagin who was busy screaming to high heaven on radio and TV.
If Nagin was screaming on TV, then he wasn’t screaming at his governor. Maybe the governor’s staff weren’t making any or few reports of trouble to the Feds who were already working on the areas where the storm’s eye actually hit.
Maybe the governor. Besides while Nagin may have been screaming does that mean Brown was wrong. Hey if someone tells me to send xy and z and I have it on the way I might say it is all working, when in fact I need cd and e and I needed to deliver it somewhere else. Little do I know what I have sent is inappropriate. Do I know what happened? NO! However, neither do you which goes right back to what McQ said. We don’t have enough information to judge yet.
...A 135-foot landing craft stored within the Bataan, the LCU-1656, was dispatched to steam up the 90-miles of Mississippi River to New Orleans. It took on a crew of 16, including a doctor, and its deck was stacked with food and water. The ship itself carries enough food and fuel to remain self-sufficient for 10 days...
Then the Bataan was ordered to move to the waters off Biloxi, Miss., and LCU-1656 was ORDERED TO RETURN. The landing craft was still 40 miles from New Orleans, but it wouldn’t be able to deliver its cargo.
"It was a disappointment," Fish said. "I figured we’d be a big help in New Orleans. We’ve got electricity, and the police could have charged up their radios. We’ve got water, toilets. We’ve got food."
...LCU-1656 cruised 98 miles overnight Thursday with a failed electrical generator and broken starboard propeller to join up again with the Bataan, their mother ship. Repairs were under way Friday and the crew was preparing to set out for the shoreline near Gulfport, Miss., Saturday with a 15,000 water tank lashed to vessel’s deck, as well as pallets of bottled water...
Well this has been interesting. As most regular readers of the blog know, I’m usually ass deep in the comments when I post something. But about the time I answered Anne’s comment this morning to remind her and other commenters that this was about actions or lack there of, I thought to myself, "self, time to sit back and see what develops ... see what commenters can bring into this discussion which might, in fact, convince you you’re just wrong about the federal effort".
Well, and I can’t say I’m surprised, they’ve brought nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero.
Nope, the critiqe, to this point, is without merit. It appears to be all about politics. It’s all about swallowing a line which says "the Fed f’d up" because there are those of you that so badly want to believe that. Because if that’s true, you can further justify your dislike (dare I say "hate") of Bush.
Me?
I’m going to wait until there’s more information available before I render judgment. And if the federal effort is found to have come up short, then I’ll be glad to say so and point out how.
Until then, enjoy. But Lance has nailed it:
I am with you McQ. Brown may have screwed up, but given all the screw ups at the local level I am not sure how you can tell, other than some people just want to hang him because they think it hurts Bush.
Now sailing within 25 miles of Gulfport, Miss., the Bataan has become a floating warehouse. Supplies from Texas and Florida are ferried out to the ship, and the helicopters distribute them where Federal Emergency Management Agency personnel say they are needed.
The Bataan has also taken on a substantial medical staff. Helicopters ferried 84 doctors, nurses and technicians 60 miles out to the ship from the Pensacola Naval Air Station on Friday, and on Saturday afternoon 24 of the medical personnel were flown to the New Orleans Convention Center where they expected to augment the staff of an Air Force medical clinic on the center’s bus parking lot. The medical staff had come from Jacksonville, Fla., Naval Hospital, and they covered a wide swath of medical specialties from surgeons and pediatricians to heart specialists, a psychiatrist and even a physical therapist.
The role in the relief effort of the sizable medical staff on board the Bataan was not up to the Navy, but to FEMA officials directing the overall effort.
Why are we assuming that the Bataan would be best used in the New Orleans area after initial rescue operations? Maybe future investigations will show that it was misused, but there are other areas with immediate needs in addition to New Orleans.
So now the local government was giving Brown cheery reports? Who would that have been? It certainly wasn’t Nagin who was busy screaming to high heaven on radio and TV.
I don’t think they were feeding Brown cherry reports, I just think they didn’t communicate to him what they felt their needs were or what the situation on the ground was. The primary example being the Mayor blasting the feds for not getting support to the convention center. The local officials had been telling people to go to the convention center, but the mayor failed to tell Brown about it. So, essentially, the mayor seems to have expected the feds to assess the needs on the ground using extra sensory perception, and then threw an emotional tantrum on the radio when their guesses didn’t meet his expectations.
The argument that FEMA should have been relying on cable news networks for intelligence isn’t a very good one. Reporters are unreliable. Reporters never reached many "hotspots" that needed immediate attention, and they exaggerated other situations into major crisis that were not critical in the scheme of things. Not to mention that the mission of all the reporters on the scene was to locate a "crisis" and make it as catastrophic as possible. Even if FEMA had a fleet of helicopters set aside to do nothing but rush to the scenes that CNN and Fox reporters were showing everyone, they never would have caught up. Reporters’ job was to manufacture intense crisis if the couldn’t find then.
I was about to look up the article because I knew it had been snipped in the most damaging way possible. We have seen that over and over again in this affair. It was just too neat a little package. More importantly how do you tell it was misused? Because we changed our mind about its best use? This reminds me of those snipping articles about the Bataan earlier and its empty beds without pointing out that it was determined that it was a better use of the staff and air assets to send the doctors ashore rather than fly the patients to the ship. Which is the right answer? Obviously people can disagree. It hardly proves anything whatever your opinion is.
McQ,
I have been meaning to address my opinion on Nagin again since you favored me with a mention in your original post, and because it bears on a broader issue that concerns me these days, and our eventual evaluation of Brown.
First, I am not sure I am asking anyone to temper his or her criticism. The man neglected his most important duty to the city. I can’t challenge your analysis one bit on that score. So why am I holding off throwing him to the wolves? At the risk that Shark will swim by and bite my head off (I know it is a bad pun Shark, but I love bad puns) I am still keeping the noose I spoke of before ready, but I am not sure it is what is best for the city, whatever shape it takes in the future.
Accountability is my issue and what it has come to mean in the poisoned political discourse of our time. Accountability has come to mean fire in politics. Someone makes a mistake, fire them. They are incompetent, heads have to roll! That is dysfunctional.
Let us go to another bureaucracy. The military. The US military today is in my opinion the most well run fighting machine the world has ever seen. It is also probably the most humane. Two roles very difficult to reconcile, but we have. Yet, even this incredibly effective force is filled with little screw-ups, which supply soldiers with an endless supply of jokes. In combat the mistakes have deadly serious consequences. Unnecessary civilian casualties, friendly fire incidents, supplies misrouted. Let us look back at the invasion of Iraq and drive to Baghdad in 2003. The media was able to portray, almost up until Baghdad fell, the invasion as one big cock up. They seized on the myriad issues, which befell individual units to give a completely misleading picture. Those of us who knew something of these things weren’t fooled, but many were. Jessica Lynch’s trauma was because of a screw up and there were hundreds of others. Should Franks have resigned? That is silly. He was responsible, wasn’t he? Don’t we have to have accountability?
There have been friendly fire incidents. Some have been after the fact obviously avoidable. The officers in retrospect should have known. They screwed up with deadly and disastrous consequences. If it is a part of an overall pattern of incompetence we fire them, however, what if it is a superb officer, an officer who in all other respects is exemplary? Yet his actions in retrospect undoubtedly showed bad judgment? Does it make sense to replace him with a less able officer, one who may put men in more danger prospectively? Do we think the negligent officer will repeat the mistake or is more likely than others to? Can this otherwise exemplary officer accept the blame forthrightly and learn? That seems a key point to me. Do we want Maxine Waters grand standing and deciding to make an example of him? Going further, what about his commanding officer? The buck stops here and all that. Someone decided the Bataan was more important somewhere else and it was moved. After the fact someone decides it would have been better for it to stay near the mouth of the Mississippi. Bush obviously doesn’t know what the hell he is doing and Michael Browns head needs to roll, right? In fact I can type all night stories like that here, it must be because if Rudy were here, or Jamie Lee Witt none of that stuff would happen, isn’t that the message?
Of course I remember the Clinton and Giuliani years and right-wingers spent endless hours pointing out all the stupid ass backwards way bureaucracies functioned then as well. Giuliani wasn’t a great mayor prior to 9/11 because everything ran smoother; he was a great mayor because he pursued the right policies. He implemented a more effective philosophy of policing the city. That allowed everything else in the city to function better. However, his bureaucrats weren’t more effective, just doing more effective things. They screwed up and wasted money just as much as before. To put it another way, if you order me to get water and send me running into the desert I won’t find water. If you send me to the river I will. I didn’t suddenly become faster, or more capable of carrying water. So competence in the sense I keep hearing it spewed across this blog by some, and other places, is a crock. Somehow or another Democrats and liberals seem to believe they have some magic answer to an efficient bureaucracy. It reminds me of those Republicans I used to hear in the 1980’s waving around the Grace commission report and saying, "we’ll run things like a business." Yeah, right. As far as I can tell both parties are filled with all kinds of talented, well-meaning individuals, as well as equal amounts of slack asses. It is policy, not competence. (Off topic, but important point. All this stuff I keep hearing from Mk and others about cronyism from Bush and Republicans, after seeing the Clinton and Carter administrations up close that is rich. )
So back to Nagin, He screwed the pooch. I don’t want him to be held accountable by us, but if necessary that is what we will have to do. What I want is for him to hold himself accountable. I want to see a commitment to learn from his mistakes. If he descends into a CYA blame game he needs to go. I don’t hold his rants last week against him when he was in an awful situation and hopefully filled with guilt, he has started backing off on that and I hope it continues. He needs to let others find other culprits and concentrate on himself and rebuilding his city. If he does a good, but humble job there I am all for him. Why? Because he seemed to be a good mayor before this. He was the first mayor of NO in a long time not to spend more time playing race games than moving the city forward. He and I don’t agree ideologically, but he is no ideologue himself. I don’t want to fire a man because his screw up was through bad luck exposed so horribly. On every other score (granting no neo-libertarian had a shot) he seemed to be the kind of urban democratic mayor we should all hope for. If Katrina hadn’t hit we all would see him differently now. If he can regain his footing New Orleans has no better man (who is likely to win) available to rebuild it, notwithstanding his colossal blunders in this area. I expect he won’t make them next time.
Of course like most things in life this is all conditional. If he doesn’t measure up I will respond with fury. We have all lost too much to do any less.
What I am about to say I think is the most important point. If our leaders, politicians and bureaucrats are punished for telling the truth about their own errors indiscriminately, we will lose their willingness to tell the truth. I have seen that with Bush. Everything is calculated to avoid giving his opponents ammunition, and for good reason. Poor Michael Brown and Chertoff. Brendan Loy is busy ripping them for what he deems to be insufficiently frank responses to some questions, but when they admit difficult truths that are bound to make them look bad, such as the convention center fiasco, look at what happens. We will also continue to lose good people who do not want to suffer the price of office. Maybe these men are not the right men for the job, I fear however we will lose the ability to figure that out as we ready the gallows at every opportunity.
Oh, I say string Blanco up now. She has been a disgrace. Not just overwhelmed, which makes me doubt her competence all around, however I am willing to see if she can pull out and be effective in other matters of importance to the state, but she is being out and out disruptive to the federal response. If my impression is born out by the facts down the road we should impeach her. It is one thing to have screwed up the planning, the first response and whole lot of other things, but to actually disrupt and delay the efforts of those trying to clean her messes up is absolutely unspeakable.
Damn, Lance, you may be right or wrong, but you sure know how to state a case. The thing is, if the smart people join with the people who got him elected....and his base loyalty is to those who got him elected....well the fox would be in charge of the henhouse, n’cest pas? I would be more specific, but if you see the problem I refer to, your response would be so much more.... [useful?] than what I have to say that I, for one, would love to hear it.
True. Which is why I am saying we should step back and take a deep breath even with those obviously culpable. Let us see. Many great figures in our history became great after they failed originally. I may even have overstated the case. If I happen to have the chance to vote I would probably support someone else, can’t say for sure, I don’t know who will be running. What I can say is it will be because of what I expect from him going forward, not because of this alone. He needs to anwer for this, he needs to show he understands and take responsibility. That doesn’t mean punishing him, it means doing what he can to fix the problems. If he stands at the federal trough and turns his city into one big welfare center then I’ll be furious and ashamed. That is exactly what the Morial’s and Landrieu’s of the world have always done and the direction he was moving away from. I have often thought about what would have happened to Rudy’s reputation if he had had disaster of this magnitude hit his city early in his administration. I am sure we would have graded him a failure. The city was ungovernable at the time. Like Nagin he has a political philosophy I am not a supporter of. Would I have welcomed back Dinkin’s in a situation like this? Sometimes we have to take the good with the bad in a figure, even if he has failed us in a crtical, but somewhat unlucky fashion.
I should also say that things may come out that might say to me he doesn’t deserve a second chance, I am still processing this. I admit that my emotions are making it difficult as I sift through the wreckage of this state. Thomas Sowell once said passionate issues require dispassionate analysis. Sowell often fails there, and I am sure I have in this as well, but I am trying to be calm, to show restraint in making judgments and check to see where my biases are. Maybe I am trying too hard. I am no Republican, but it is hard for me to have anything but disgust for the Democratic party of LA. That is not partisan, no contemporary liberal can say this party over the years has represented their ideals. It has been a racist, sexist, environmental disaster that ran the state as its own one party empire. Knowing those biases (though I think they are well earned biases) I may be trying too hard to be fair. If that is a fault so be it. If I err it will be that way. I don’t want to look back after this and realize I have turned into the neo-libertarian version of mk, a path all too easy to take amid the rubble.
A point on grading this. The American public has been ill served by a meme in our media. I call it the "Where’s FEMA" meme. Over and over I have heard local officials and others interviewed by the media, the person is asked about FEMA and they say something along the lines of "I talked to some guy and then he disappeared. Luckily the national guard showed up" or "we got supplies later from so and so." I want to scream at the TV, WHO DO YOU THINK SENT THEM! It is as if FEMA had its own army, trucks and food to send. The media is clueless, and seemingly so are our officials. No wonder the people suffering from this hate FEMA. They don’t have a clue about what FEMA does. They send someone out, he figures out what needs to be done, then gets someone to do it. Are they doing a good job? I can’t tell, but if the past is any guide they seem to be doing better than previously. We will not know what we need to know if the coverage continues to work like this.
One other area that is obscuring a lot. I know few here give any credence to the charges of racism. Nevertheless it seems to be lost on many people that the focus of this has been New Orleans on everybody’s part. Yet most of the people who have been effected live in the other parishes, they were hit even worse, people are only just beginning to talk about them, aid and help has actually been slower to reach them and all of those parishes are majority white. How you square that with a cavalier attitude towards african-americans is beyond me. If anything the response has been tilted toward african-americans. I don’t have a problem with that really, the reasons are numerous including geography (Plaquemines has to a large extent been returned to the gulf. Exactly how to effectively respond there is a question I can’t answer.) The Missisippi counties hit were amongst the whitest in the state. What I guess I am saying is not just that it is a wrong way to look at it, I am preaching to the choir there, but that there is not even a prima facia case on this. It is made up of whole cloth.
I would also like to take a moment to thank the guys here at QandO, all kidding about sucking up aside. I include the commenters as well. I know I have unleashed a flood of words here, and I almost started to do all this at a blog just starting up I have been invited to join by a good friend of mine Peter Jackson (He lives in Austin now but he and his wife’s family have been in the thick of things. His wife’s brother for example was a doctor trapped in the Tulane Medical center along with his wife.) However, having a place where the conversation has already started has been vastly helpful. A place filled with people who I often disagree with, but who mostly seem to want to understand rather than just a partisan fight has been very helpful. Even mk has been helpful. I have a place to respond to moonbattery without having to wade through poor Kevin Drums comments (how does someone as bright as Kevin put up with that? Really, I feel sorry for the guy if he actually reads all that crap. It has got to embarass him to know his audience is filled with such hate filled ignorance.) I hope to begin posting there soon, but now just wasn’t the time. Anyway, QandO, you have built a special place here that is a bastion of civility and humane discourse. I know many of your visitors appreciate this, but it has been a godsend for me.
Anyway, QandO, you have built a special place here that is a bastion of civility and humane discourse. I know many of your visitors appreciate this, but it has been a godsend for me.
I almost regretted saying it after the fact. It was a little maudlin, but I meant it. If you, Dale, Jon or any of the other commenters happen to be in La. please drop me a line. I will be glad to see if I can get you put up. I have access to a pretty special place for free and I would enjoy meeting you all.
Yes, that does mean gumbo. I make a mean seafood gumbo.
All I can say is that you need to look at the entire ’disaster area of Katrina’.... the only ones that have continued to ’SCREAM COMPLAINTS’ are New Orleans.... The other areas have maintained order, and the residents and local government rose to the occaission, the difference between these other ’areas’ and New Orleans is the Local and State Government!!!!!!
I really cannot comprehend the amount of ignorance it actually takes to totally not question the ridiculous local and state response in New Orleans.... as for the food and water that was turned away, it wasn’t by FEMA it was by the State Homeland Security (this would be under the governor) and it was to the Red Cross (a FEMA partner - who is tasked with supplying food and water on behalf of FEMA because of ’logistics’, they have a presence in every large cities and can respond quicker) and they were turned away within 2 miles of the Superdome on Tuesday....
Even with the the total breakdown of law and order the idiot Governor didn’t order the National Guard in until a couple of days after the hurricane, why is this acceptable to you if you expected FEMA to be there in 24 hours????? This was a BIG part of the problem of the lack of security in the Superdome!!! But, no, lets pretend that the Governor’s inability to make any kind of decision didn’t play a role in the total CHAOS of New Orleans, I mean after all Bush’s crystal ball should have been working and they should have just known from the get go that they couldn’t count on the incompetents in New Orleans... Mississippi didn’t have the same problem, maybe it is because they actually had a Governor that MADE DECISIONS and made it important from the getgo that law and order would be maintained instead of the idiotic excuses that were offered for lawlessness - that is why NO is in the shape it is in!!!!
"So, what is it? Did the federal government not do its job by supplementing or not do its job by not recognizing the supplementing was needed?"
SUPPLEMENTING MY ASS!!! Supplementing actually suggests that something WAS done by the local and State.... why aren’t you concerned about the GOV not calling up the National Guard until several days after the storm????? The GOV turned down offers of assistance with neighboring National Guard units - where is your outrage.... help right next door - could have been in place right away to assist in security.... Like I said, there are communities in Mississippi that were 70% to 80% destroyed, that they haven’t been able to clear the streets and complete the search for dead people either, the only difference is that their local and State government officials are more a little more competent and know that they ACTUALLY do have to do some of the work!!!!
It is really impossible to judge large scale operations on the basis of anecdotal stories in the media. Only a statistical wide view will give us the true picture. I would offer the following observations.
(1) Every large scale operations has screwups. Even if FEMA had unambiguously preformed superhumanly there would still be dozens of stories of spot failures.
(2) Local officials desperate for relief are not the best sources for assessing whether the relief for the entire region is flowing efficiently. They want relief yesterday and may correctly believe that screaming at the camera will get it there faster.
(3) If FEMA is so flawed, why did we not see signs of this during the four hurricanes that Florida has suffered in the last year? Why did FEMA fail in Louisiana and especially in New Orleans but apparently succeed in Mississippi? Why was widespread disorder only a problem in New Orleans but nowhere else? If the failure was at the Federal level wouldn’t it have effected all areas more equally?
(4) Peoples philosophical belief that the Federal government should run all disaster operations from top to bottom does not comprise evidence that the actual system is structured that way. Even a most cursory examination of disaster operations is enough to tell one that primary responsibility, especially for the first 72 hours rest with the local authorities and always has. Peoples misunderstanding of the way the system is designed does not comprise a failure of the system.
