A whole bunch of nothing Posted by: McQ
on Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Stirring the pot, John Conyers has released a Congressional Research Service report on the Hurricane Katrina tragedy which he claims essentailly absolves Governor Blanco of Louisiana and places the blame for the "sluggish" relief response at a federal level. (I went to the CRS website but haven't found the report.)
Anyway, to the claims made by Conyers in the press release:
"This report closes the book on the Bush Administration's attempts to evade accountability by shifting the blame to the Governor of Louisiana for the Administration's tragically sluggish response to Katrina. It confirms that the Governor did everything she could to secure relief for the people of Louisiana and the Bush Administration was caught napping at a critical time."
Actually Congressman, it barely opens the book on the questions of responsibility. When all is said and done, the primary responsiblity for disaster relief managment remains at the state level, a cold hard fact that most of those who want to throw "failure" at the feet of FEMA and the fed choose to ignore.
But to the "evidence":
In addition to finding that "...it would appear that the Governor did take the steps necessary to request emergency and major disaster declarations for the State of Louisiana in anticipation of Hurricane Katrina. (p.11)" The report found that:
— All necessary conditions for federal relief were met on August 28. Pursuant to Section 502 of the Stafford Act, "(t)he declaration of an emergency by the President makes Federal emergency assistance available," and the President made such a declaration on August 28. The public record indicates that several additional days passed before such assistance was actually made available to the State;
Several days passed before such assistance was actually made available? You mean like 72 hours of "several days". That is within the time frame in which state planners are told to operate before they should expect FEMA to have the flow going into their area. So if we expect a 72 hour lag, then FEMA should have been beginning to get its flow of people and stuff into the area on Sept. 1st.
— The Governor must make a timely request for such assistance, which meets the requirements of federal law. The report states that "(e)xcept to the extent that an emergency involves primarily Federal interests, both declarations of major disaster and declarations of emergency must be triggered by a request to the President from the Governor of the affected state";
And she did that pro-forma request. Excellent. I don't think that's news to anyone.
But here are the questions unasked: when relief was made available what did she do with it? How was it directed? What were her priorities of relief and how and when where they communicated to FEMA? Saying "hey I need help" in a pro-forma letter doesn't absolve her from then being specific and managing the crisis. What specifics did the state EOC provide FEMA, and when, for priorities and locations for FEMA help?
As we've pointed out numerous times, that is where we can begin to analyze where the relief effort stumbled. If the state provided specifics, priorities and locations immediately, then the ball was dropped by FEMA if they were days late getting the stuff and people where they were supposed to be after they came on line. If not, the responsibility lays with the state.
To this day, we have no idea where it lays because those questions remain unanswered.
— The Governor did indeed make such a request, which was both timely and in compliance with federal law. The report finds that "Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco requested by letter dated August 27, 2005...that the President declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina for the time period from August 26, 2005 and continuing pursuant to (applicable Federal statute)" and "Governor Blanco's August 27, 2005 request for an emergency declaration also included her determination...that 'the 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 disaster."
Wonderful. Now, answer the questions above, as this is all boilerplate. Again the problem has to do with expectation and reality. It also has to do with state management of the disaster and whether requested specific FEMA resources in a timely manner or not. Those points are being ignored completely by this release from Conyers.
The surest way to see who really is responsible, is in how other jurisdictions are preparing and acting in the face of subsequent forces of nature. To wit, I’m hearing lots about South and North Carolinian costal communities, in conjunction with thier respective state governments, preparing for Hurricane Ophelia - evacuations, pre-positioning of NG units, mobilizing assessment teams, setting up aid stations, etc.
The report found at http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/crskatrinarept91205.pdf also finds that
"In response to the Governor’s request, it appears that the President did take the steps necessary to trigger the availability of Stafford Act emergency assistance and disaster assistance, by declaring first a state of emergency, and later a major disaster, and authorizing specific Stafford Act assistance to be made available to the State of Louisiana to respond to the effects of the Hurricane."
It does seem that some are making the argument that once the local officials made an official request of the Federal government then they could just go away on vacation and let the Feds take care of everything.
Poppycock. The fundamental question here is saving lives. I would imagine that >95% of the lives lost were lost within the first 36-48 hrs after Katrina hit land, with percentage being larger if death tolls increase. In the end the only action that would have saved those lives lost will be shown to be the evacuation of NOLA and other coastal and low lying regions.
McQ says: And she did that pro-forma request. Excellent. I don’t think that’s news to anyone.
It was news to this anonymous Bush administration source: In a Sept. 4 Washington Post article, which was corrected hours later, an anonymous Bush administration source claimed Governor Blanco had not yet declared a state of emergency in Louisiana. The Post reported, “As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.”
The Post corrected this story by pointing out Blanco did declare a state of emergency in the letter dated August 27, 2005.
The CRS report confirms the anonymous Bush administration official lied.
An anonymous source lied! Heaven forbid! If only we had some other administration that never had some anonymous lie. The Clinton’s never lied. Reagan’s people never had anyone say a lie. The world has just gone downhill this week.
The reason for the confusion as to whether the Governor had declared a state of emergency is because neither the Governor or Bennett Landreneau executed the Louisiana Emergency Operations Plan. She had not ordered a mandatory evacuation of Southeast Louisiana. Although she was present at a news conference on Aug 28 when Mayor Nagin told everyone who could leave the city they should, only the Governor has the authority to order a mandatory evacutaion. She never signed an executive order to that effect. She did not provide transportation for hospital patients or nursing home residents out of the affected parishes as is the state’s responsibility in an hurricane emergency. Finally, the Louisiana National Guard has 11,000 troops, of which 3,000 were overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of the remaining 8,000, less than half were on active duty when Katrina hit. The Governor failed to call up those NG troops in a timely manner. I could understand how someone might get the impression that the Governor didn’t declare a state of emergency. Mike Brown resigned over the "delay" at the federal level. I could certainly name a few people who should be fired at the state and local level as well.
Chuck DeWitt http://www.impeachblanco.org
Source: Louisiana State Emergency Operations Plan http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/plans/STATE%20OF%20LOUISIANA%20EOP%202005.doc
