Did FEMA Fail Us? - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Ustwo · 09-02-2005, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

Bring it on, baby!!

Look, here's the bottom line, for me: When I am the boss, if something goes wrong on my watch, it goes wrong on my watch and that's the end of the story. Doesn't really matter if I knew it was going wrong, or if I personally had anything to do with it. I'm the boss. It went wrong on my watch. That makes me responsible. It's a question of integrity and accountability. With (some, not all) past POTUSes, that was the way it was too. It's just clearly not the case with this administration.

I have more to say about this, but as tecoyah points out, it's off topic.

Yes, FEMA has failed us, but it's not just FEMA.

Who is the boss of New Orleans?

j8ear · 09-02-2005, 12:26 PM

Here's a great article from Slate.com

Here is my favorite except:

Quote:

Originally Posted by slate.com

How is it possible that with the fourth anniversary of 9/11 almost upon us, the federal government doesn't have in hand the capability to prepare for and then manage a large urban disaster, natural or man-made? In terms of the challenge to government, there is little difference between a terrorist attack that wounds many people and renders a significant portion of a city uninhabitable, and the fallout this week from the failure of one of New Orleans' major levees. Indeed, a terrorist could have chosen a levee for his target. Or a dirty-bomb attack in New Orleans could have caused the same sort of forced evacuation we are seeing and the widespread sickness that is likely to follow.

Chertoff's Department of Homeland Security demonstrated today that it could organize an impressive press conference in Washington, lining up every participating civilian or military service from the Coast Guard to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to promise its cooperation. But on the ground in Louisiana, where it counts, DHS is turning out to be the sum of its inefficient parts. The department looks like what its biggest critics predicted: a new level of bureaucracy grafted onto a collection of largely ineffectual under-agencies.

As I posted earlier, FEMA and the rest of the Federal Government are lagging, but to take it a step further, with this, as WITH EVERY SINGLE FUCKING PROGRAM the feds take up, it is a complete disaster.

\queues up the end of Braveheart...mounts high horse.

I still want to hang the mayor of New Orleans by his testicles then watch his constituents eviserate then draw and quarter his worthless ass...and have the Governor of LA's ovaries removed without anethesia so she can no longer pollute our species with her genes, but I also want to give credit where credit is due. While 90% of this aftermath debacle is of local making, it was...hell still is...not beyond resolution if the DHS would get it's collective head out of its ass and get things under control.

\turns off 'Braveheart' and steps off of high horse

The biggest problem was the lack of desire to deal with the lawlessness and looting. It snowballed and the 'lord of the flies' mentality that exists now is a direct result of this inaction.

Thank you moral relativism, political correctness, and the compassion and understanding industries.

Why do people think that human nature can be altered or even tamed?

-bear

Elphaba · 09-02-2005, 01:22 PM

Quote:

When I watched the head of FEMA last nite I just wanted to slap him....I knew about the covnetion center day before yesterday...how could he have NOT known? It was listed as an evacuation place.

If the head of FEMA appeared clueless, this might explain it:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090205Z.shtml

Excerpt:

Quote:

Try this timeline on for size. In January of 2001, George W. Bush appointed Texas crony Joe Allbaugh to head FEMA, despite the fact that Allbaugh had exactly zero experience in disaster management. By April of 2001, the Bush administration announced that much of FEMA's work would be privatized and downsized. Allbaugh that month described FEMA as, "an oversized entitlement program."

In December 2002, Allbaugh quit as head of FEMA to create a consulting firm whose purpose was to advise and assist companies looking to do business in occupied Iraq. He was replaced by Michael D. Brown, whose experience in disaster management was gathered while working as an estate planning lawyer in Colorado, and while serving as counsel for the International Arabian Horse Association legal department. In other words, Bush chose back-to-back FEMA heads whose collective ability to work that position could fit inside a thimble with room to spare.

By March of 2003, FEMA was no longer a Cabinet-level position, and was folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its primary mission was recast towards fighting acts of terrorism. In June of 2004, the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for levee construction in New Orleans was cut by a record $71.2 million. Jefferson Parish emergency management chief Walter Maestri said at the time, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay."

j8ear · 09-02-2005, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elphaba

If the head of FEMA appeared clueless, this might explain it:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090205Z.shtml

Unfortunately it doesn't explain it. The reason the head of FEMA "appears" clueless is because that's how governments spins things...favorably towards themselves. Spin in that sentence=lie.

Presidents apponting croonies is how it's always worked. I take exception to it, but I'm unsure how it's relevant, or particularly shocking in this or any instance.

The only thing I found interesting in that snip, Elpheba, is this:

"...an oversized entitlement program..."

And agree 100% with that assesment of FEMA.

-bear

PS. I'm not even going to 'touch' that source, btw...

Stompy · 09-02-2005, 01:52 PM

Are people really surprised at this?

Our country is horrible at handling disasters mainly because those who SHOULD be prepared are too arrogant in thinking it will never happen, or the methods they have in place are sufficient enough.

9/11 proved otherwise.

You'd figure after that, our country would have a better grip on how to handle disaster areas - we don't. Why? Nothing is different. Because all this time you've been thinking you're much safer when in reality it's just not true.

At least 9/11 was a unique case in that they didn't know how to handle buildings collapsing in the midst of a populated city like NYC - so not being ready is understandable (to a point).

In a situation like this... there's no excuse. It's no surprise that area of the country gets slammed each year by hurricanes. You would think those in charge would have a plan to prepare for the worst - assume each hurricane is a class 5.

Shit, I know if I was living in or in charge of a city BELOW SEA LEVEL, I'd wanna make sure the man-made structures in place can withstand the highest natural disaster - that didn't happen. Bad move and ignorance on their part.

As for the fed govt taking their sweet ass time gettin there... again, no surprise. They should've been ready for the worst when the hurricane was first announced. ALWAYS have troops and supplies ready to go because you don't know what's gonna happen - they failed in that aspect.

We simply don't know how to handle crisis situations and live under the illusion that when something bad happens, the govt will wave a magic wand and fix it all. They're just as clueless as we are.

ratbastid · 09-02-2005, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Who is the boss of New Orleans?

George W. Bush is, once he declares a federal disaster area.

Granted, there are local bosses who are being equally slimy, and people in the chain of command all the way up who are dropping balls. But at the end of the day, who's the top dog of the pile of FEMA and their operations in New Orleans? FEMA being under the authority of the Department for Homeland Security, a cabinet-level department? Whooooose cabinet?

The buck absolutely without a doubt does NOT Stop Here with this president. That's why it doesn't stop with anyone else all the way down--there's nobody at the top holding the line. It's all politics.

A fish rots from the head down. NOLA smells a lot like rotten fish these days.

docbungle · 09-02-2005, 03:44 PM

This is hilarious. Mother nature decided to royally fuck shit up, and everyone here seems to want to turn it into a political argument. I don't care if you have a million people helping out in New Orleans and the surrounding areas, there is no way to prepare for shit like this in a satisfactory manner. It is going to be chaos, regardless of where the president is or who the president is or how many precautions a governor made beforehand. It is going to take some time to figure out what in the hell people are supposed to do and figure out how in the hell they are supposed to do it. You can't just throw money at this disaster and expect it to get fixed. You also cant just throw people at it and expect it to get fixed.

No matter how much you think you can control these types of situations, you just cant.

hamsterdancer · 09-02-2005, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel_

Somehow I think the democrats will get in next time.

Like the mayor of N.O., and the Governor of LA?

Nagin is no Guliani, and that's where most of the problem stems from.

Why didn't Bush send in the National Guard? It could be because the National Guard is commanded by the State Governors, unless they are called into Federal service. Had Bush stripped the State Governors of their most potent asset, what do you think the response would have been?

Elphaba · 09-02-2005, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by j8ear

PS. I'm not even going to 'touch' that source, btw...

Heh. I thought about the source and quoted the factual statements only and left out the liberal "outrage."

I don't agree with you that FEMA was an entitlement program. The agency had rightfully gained some respect for it's multi-state responses to natural disasters. I have no argument with the decision to move FEMA under the Homeland Security banner, but a Federal first response team for either natural or unnatural disasters seems to have withered away. The Federal government responding to any kind of multi-state catastrophe is not an entitlement, but a duty.

Rekna · 09-02-2005, 05:20 PM

once again we have someone linking 9/11 to the war on iraq. were the two related?

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevo

yep. thats right. I forgot. its all his fault. damn. If only we didn't get attacked on 9/11 those people in New Orleans would have been able to evacuate. Bush sure did screw them over. He should have had C-130's in there last saturday evacuating the poor. but alas, they were used up in Iraq, and the poor people of new orleans had to rely on their super competant governor who had a wonderful plan for them all to be safe. I just can't remember what it was.

/sarcasm

Stompy · 09-02-2005, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by docbungle

...there is no way to prepare for shit like this in a satisfactory manner...

No matter how much you think you can control these types of situations, you just cant.

To a point... you can't control them, no, but you can definitely prepare for the worst.

You live in hurricane alley, you have a city BELOW sea level, and the only thing you have to protect you from flooding is badly outdated man-made barriers.

None of this, prior to the hurriane, was news or a surprise to anyone.

That's just disaster waiting to happen - and as we can see, that's exactly what happened. Nature is bad and uncontrollable, BUT they could've definitely done something about this particular situation ahead of time.

They didn't and now they're payin the price.

irateplatypus · 09-02-2005, 06:23 PM

i'm startled at how many people seem think it's the federal government's role to protect us from natural phenomena.

Locobot · 09-02-2005, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by irateplatypus

i'm startled at how many people seem think it's the federal government's role to protect us from natural phenomena.

If by natural phenomena you mean a disaster effecting multiple states with immediate repercussions for the entire nation then yes, the national government does have resposibilities.

irateplatypus · 09-02-2005, 07:18 PM

yes, that's exactly what i mean.

i'm not absolving the federal government from all involvement, but the whining and complaining about the level of federal support is making me nauseous.

alansmithee · 09-02-2005, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel_

Somehow I think the democrats will get in next time.

You caught us, this was a Republican hurricane that has been secretly brewing on GWB's ranch in Texas. I think it even voted for GWB in the last election.

Locobot · 09-03-2005, 12:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by irateplatypus

yes, that's exactly what i mean.

i'm not absolving the federal government from all involvement, but the whining and complaining about the level of federal support is making me nauseous.

So when the richest nation in the world experiences one of its worst natural disasters ever we should expect the response from the government to be shitty and half-assed? I don't understand.

I'm not saying that the government response has been terrible given the magnitude of what's happened, but for the head of FEMA to be less informed than the average journalist several days later, that's reprehensible.

j8ear · 09-03-2005, 09:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by irateplatypus

i'm startled at how many people seem think it's the federal government's role to protect us from natural phenomena.

and

Quote:

Originally Posted by irateplatypus

complaining about the level of federal support is making me nauseous.

I couldn't agree more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locobot

....expect the response from the government.....? I don't understand.

That is painfully obvious.

It is fascinating to me, how the education in this country produces citizens who have zero understanding of what the actual role of their government is.

"Oh please all mighty government..save me from myself!"

-bear

j8ear · 09-03-2005, 09:55 AM

What kind of anarchist are you anyway? A big government anarchist?

-bear

tecoyah · 09-03-2005, 10:00 AM

well....obviously this thread has gone beyond the point of useful information. I seriously wanted to get a feel for whether or not people felt FEMA did its job....and appreciate the replys.

Re-opened at member request

raveneye · 09-07-2005, 05:40 AM

Today Salon magazine came out with an article on this thread topic, "Why FEMA failed". It's an interesting article, posted in full below for linkaphobic folks.

This article summarizes many of the points already made in this thread, but backs them up with some interesting attributions. Basically it's saying what is becoming increasingly obvious: FEMA failed for conservative ideological reasons, namely that the current administration has taken the line that the federal government should have a much lower profile in local disasters than in the past, and the local governments should take on much greater responsibility and cost than in the past.

The problem with this position, in my view, is that disasters of this magnitude completely, utterly overwhelm the local resources, and without federal assistance, people will die, possibly in great numbers. In fact that seems to be precisely what happened in the case of Katrina.

BTW, this is just one of many news analyses out today that looks critically at the detailed behavior of FEMA in the days after Katrina, all coming to pretty much the same conclusion.

Quote:

September 7, 2005 Wednesday

SECTION: Feature

LENGTH: 1651 words

HEADLINE: Why FEMA failed

BYLINE: By Farhad Manjoo

HIGHLIGHT:
Ideologically opposed to a strong federal role in disaster relief and obsessed with terrorism, the Bush administration let a once-admired agency fall apart.

BODY:
Days before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, the city of Chicago drew up a list of resources it was willing to make available for relief efforts in areas that might be hit by the storm. Chicago told the Federal Emergency Management Agency that in the event of disaster, it could spare more than 100 Chicago police officers, 36 Fire Department personnel, eight emergency medical experts, more than 130 staff from Chicago's Department of Public Health, 140 staff from the Department of Streets & Sanitation, dozens of trucks and two boats. These teams, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley told federal officials, could work in affected areas independently, bringing their own food, water and other supplies with them. But FEMA apparently wasn't interested. Despite the host of resources Chicago offered, and despite the televised lack of resources in New Orleans, as of late last week, FEMA had requested only one thing from Chicago -- a single tanker truck. "I was shocked," Daley said at a news conference on Friday. "We are ready to provide considerably more help than they have requested. We are just waiting for a call."

Daley wasn't the only generous donor to be rebuffed. Throughout last week, various local and state governments, corporations and nonprofit organizations across the nation attempted to help in the relief effort, only to be snubbed by federal officials -- officials who were themselves providing precious little aid to those in need. Citing security concerns, the Department of Homeland Security barred the American Red Cross from entering New Orleans with food. Five hundred Floridian airboaters were ready to rescue people stranded in inundated homes, but FEMA turned them down. Twenty sheriff's deputies from Loudoun County, Va., suffered a similar fate. And Aaron Broussard, the president of Jefferson Parish, La., said on "Meet the Press" on Sunday that FEMA declined to let him accept three tanker trucks of water donated by Wal-Mart, as well as 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel stored in a Coast Guard vessel docked in his district.

During the 1990s, FEMA was routinely praised as one of the best-functioning federal agencies. Its response to the Midwestern floods of 1993, the Northridge earthquake of 1994, and 1995's Oklahoma City terrorist attack are considered models of emergency response. By contrast, its performance during Katrina is almost universally acknowledged to have been abysmally poor. At first, FEMA's post-Katrina failure appears baffling: What happened to the once-great FEMA? But George Haddow, who served as the deputy chief of staff at FEMA under James Lee Witt, Bill Clinton's FEMA director, thinks that FEMA's current flaws are all too understandable -- and are a direct consequence of the Bush administration's decision to pull the federal government out of the natural disaster-relief business and turn over more power to state and local officials.

Indeed, the White House's new response to the political disaster prompted by Katrina -- one in which officials are attempting to blame authorities in Louisiana, rather than in Washington, for the slow aid -- underscores the Bush philosophy. According to Haddow, instead of working with local officials to try to minimize the impacts of an impending storm, the White House has decided its best strategy is to keep its distance from people on the ground. That way if anything goes wrong, the White House can "attack, attack, attack."

We began to see some of these attacks over the weekend. Sunday's Washington Post cited an anonymous Bush administration official who explained that one reason that the federal government didn't intervene more quickly in Louisiana was because Kathleen Blanco, the state's Democratic governor, failed to declare a state of emergency there, a necessary step for federal help to flow. An article in Newsweek repeats the same claim.

But there's a problem with the White House's excuse: It's patently false. As Josh Marshall points out, Blanco declared a state of emergency on Aug. 26 -- a day before Bush declared a federal emergency in Louisiana. (You can see Blanco's official declaration in PDF format here; the Washington Post has corrected its article.) On Aug. 28 -- the day before Katrina made landfall -- Blanco followed her declaration with an official letter (PDF) to Bush that requested all manner of emergency supplies her state would need for the aftermath.

Haddow says that these requests should have been enough -- more than enough -- to prompt a full-scale federal response. Under the Clinton administration's FEMA, with Witt as the head, a storm of Katrina's magnitude would have prompted federal and state officials to actually meet in order to coordinate their response. "You were all working together to anticipate needs," Haddow says. "You're all sitting in the same room when the things happened -- the Midwest flood, the Northridge quake, the Oklahoma City bombing and all the disasters we responded to. We were in the same room together and nobody had to point fingers."

Close coordination with state officials was key to the Clinton administration's capacity to act quickly in the heat of a disaster, Haddow says. "We had a really solid partnership, so we received solid, timely information from the ground. Then we managed that information and turned it into a mission assignment." In other words, when people on the ground needed something, they knew who in the federal government to ask, and when the federal government had extra resources at the ready -- cops from Chicago, say, or water from Wal-Mart -- it would know where to send them. Contrast that situation to what happened after Katrina, when both Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, and Michael Brown, the FEMA director, admitted to several reporters that they had no idea that people were starving at the New Orleans Convention Center, even though the grim scene there had been played and replayed on television all day.

The Bush administration's distance from local disaster-relief officials is by design. From the moment Bush stepped into office, he's been determined to move away from the coordinated state/local/federal disaster-relief approach used by Clinton. Instead, as Joe Allbaugh, Bush's first FEMA dirctor, told a congressional panel in 2001, Bush wanted to pull the federal government out of the disaster-relief business and aimed to "restore the predominant role of state and local response to most disasters." The federal government became even less involved in natural disaster relief after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when FEMA's mission was shifted toward responding to terrorist attacks. In 2002, Congress created the Department of Homeland Security, and FEMA -- which Clinton had elevated to a Cabinet-level agency -- was made one department in the massive bureaucracy. As a result, although George W. Bush has a nickname for FEMA director Brown ("Brownie"), Brown enjoys far less clout under Bush than Witt enjoyed under Clinton, which Haddow says is an "incalculable loss of influence" for FEMA.

State and local disaster-relief officials have been complaining about the lack of federal involvement in emergency response for some time. Trina Sheets, the executive director of the National Emergency Management Association, which represents local emergency personnel, told Salon that "since the Department of Homeland Security was established there has been a steady degradation of the capabilities." Local officials protested earlier this year, when the Department of Homeland Security proposed an internal reorganization that would officially absolve FEMA of its disaster-preparedness functions and instead hand disaster relief to a new agency. Sheets says that her group has expressed its "concern" about the move in a meeting with Chertoff. Other local disaster-relief directors have been more critical. The day after Katrina struck New Orleans, Eric Holdeman, director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management, wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post denouncing the reorganization plan as a "a death blow to an agency that was already on life support." He added: "Those of us in the business of dealing with emergencies find ourselves with no national leadership and no mentors."

Of particular concern to local officials is the administration's increasing focus on terrorism to the exclusion of natural disasters. A recent report by the Government Accountability Office showed that "almost 3 of every 4 grant dollars appropriated to the [Department of Homeland Security] for first responders in fiscal year 2005 were for 3 primary programs that had an explicit focus on terrorism." More than $2 billion in grant money is available to local governments looking to improve the way they respond to terrorist attacks, but only $180 million is available under the main grant program for natural disaster funding, Homeland Security's Emergency Management Performance Grant program. The administration had proposed cutting that amount to $170 million, even though NEMA had identified a $264 million national shortfall in natural-disaster funding.

"We have testified before Congress countless times, we have sent letters to DHS, we have met with Secretary Chertoff as recently as three weeks ago, pleading for a balanced approach between terrorism and natural disasters," Sheets said.

And balance, Haddow agrees, is what's needed. "You gotta do both," he says. "You've got to fight terrorism." But you've got to respond to hurricanes and earthquakes, too. And when Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana on the Saturday before Katrina struck the Gulf, he made a promise to residents that he would respond, Haddow says. "People died because they couldn't get it right," he says. "People died because they didn't deliver on their promise."

Additional reporting by Michael Scherer.

Bill O'Rights · 09-07-2005, 09:19 AM

From 1991 to 2001, Michael Brown was the Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. A position from which he was forced to resign in the face of mounting litigation and financial disarray.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boston Herald

Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Brown spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders' and horse-show organization based in Colorado.
``We do disciplinary actions, certification of (show trial) judges. We hold classes to train people to become judges and stewards. And we keep records,'' explained a spokeswoman for the IAHA commissioner's office. ``This was his full-time job . . . for 11 years,'' she added.
Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures.
``He was asked to resign,'' Bill Pennington, president of the IAHA at the time, confirmed last night.

Unconfirmed reports also indicate that he was fired (forced out?) for incompetence while working for an Oklahoma law firm, as well.

THIS is the man that the President of the United States saw fit to bestow as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Administration. Based on what, exactly? His experience in mismanagement, or his experience in writing large checks?

There will come a time of reckoning. And I predict that Michael Brown, rather that be fired for gross incompetence, will instead be awarded the Medal of Freedom.

tecoyah · 09-07-2005, 11:16 AM

As much as I have wanted to post that^^^^^^I didnt.

Thanx Bill.

Hardknock · 09-07-2005, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShaniFaye

ummm I hate to argue....but Bush did declare it before hand (or is this different? I cant tell because of the wording if state of emergency and federal disaster area mean the same thing....it looks like they both meant it would mean disaster relief would be sent right away)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/08/....ap/index.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167240,00.htm

Declaring a emergency and mobilizing resources are two VERY different things.

Charlatan · 09-07-2005, 12:17 PM

I think there is plenty of blame to go around from the top (Bush) on down to FEMA, to the Govenor, the Mayor and many individuals on the ground.

Regardless of what Bush was supposed to do he failed with regards to the PR on this. He should have dropped everything and rushed back to DC to "coordinate" efforts. This was a national disaster and he should have at least appeared to be on the ball. His handlers failed him and for a leader who has shown an uncanny ability to control his image in the media, this is BIG.

FEMA appeared to operate like a chicken with its head cut off. Despite declarations of Distaster Areas from both Federal and State levels the help didn't seem to flow fast enough. It seems it was tied up in paperwork and mismanagement. Seems to me that if you are going to have an agency of this nature it should be able to get shit done when it matters most. It did work in the past so I can only assume (at this point) that when something works you shouldn't fix it... Homeland Security has some 'splaining to do. As does Bush for appointing the yahoo in charge of FEMA, this seems like one postion that should have an expert rather than a crony or someone who gives good campaign finance.

The Govenor and the Mayor... they both seem to be trying hard but it just isn't enough. I get the feeling that they are a lot like the people on the ground who just never thought it could get this bad. In the end... they really should have been more prepared and made more effort on getting people out of harms way. Martial Law should have been declared immediately after the storm had passed and National Guards should have been preped and on standby days BEFORE the storm. You can always send them home if they aren't needed.

The people who stayed behind. I don't blame them, like some do for staying. I do blame those who would loot and shoot at rescue efforts. Unlike other areas, where communities banded together, certain elements of New Orleans behaved like they were in a Living Dead film.

I am glad to hear that Bush has called for an inquest into what happened. At least he seems to be back on track -- looking like he's doing something.

In the end, regardless of who is to blame the storm was a disaster, the organization of the rescue and post-storm support was a tragedy.

meembo · 09-07-2005, 02:07 PM

I think the other shoe has to drop. FEMA failed, but so did local government. The mayor and governor clearly weren't communicating well or coordinating services, and neither of them actually requested help from FEMA in anticipation of being overwhelmed, as they are required to do -- FEMA doesn't mobilize until they are asked to by local governments.

I haven't seen any evidence that New Orleans has/had a plan to evacuate the poor and the elderly, both of which are chronic concerns of the city. In the end, I think there will be a new definition of "mandatory evacuation" in the face of a natural disaster, and who is responsible for the cost of such a big undertaking.

pig · 09-07-2005, 02:21 PM

I've been waiting out this topic a bit, but I have to say that I do think that ultimately we are seeing a systemic failure on a national level. I think the response of FEMA has inadequate, and from I can see its potentially symptomatic of the national agencies expecting / trying to transition to a more local-oriented response, and the local levels expecting more federal involvement. End result : no one takes responsibility. In a state of transition, no one knew where the responsibility lay, everyone thought it was someone else's job, and no one ponied up and took responsibility.

That's what I find so appalling. I personally don't hold the mayor as accountable as it seems some do (he seems to have been fairly vocal in expressing the needs of his city) - but I would be curious to know how much previous mayors and governors in disaster areas have had to personally head up evacuations? In previous situations, before the re-alignment of FEMA in the DHS, was their role mostly to make calls to the Feds and then following orders that the Feds passed down?

I'll admit I'm not a fan of the current administration. Regardless of my feelings on other political topics, I don't feel this is political. I am appalled by the lack of leadership that has been displayed on the national level. I would think that after the federal and state levels of emergency were declared, that if I were the head of FEMA and I saw practically nothing being done to get the relief in, I would calling everyone I could think of to get the ball rolling. And if I were the President, or the head of Homeland Security, and the guy underneath me wasn't making the calls - I would call his ass, and I would make the appropriate calls to get the process started. Even if the state and city totalled fucked up, if I had the authority to take over (which they did after the States of Emergency were issued) I'd like to think I'd do what was necessary to get the relief in.

It may not be part of Bush's resume. It may not be part of Chertoff's resume. In my opinion, a part of leadership is going above and beyond in critical times to make sure that the appropriate actions are taken, even if it's not your job.

meembo · 09-07-2005, 02:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pigglet

I personally don't hold the mayor as accountable as it seems some do (he seems to have been fairly vocal in expressing the needs of his city) - but I would be curious to know how much previous mayors and governors in disaster areas have had to personally head up evacuations? In previous situations, before the re-alignment of FEMA in the DHS, was their role mostly to make calls to the Feds and then following orders that the Feds passed down?

I'm sympathetic to much of what you say, but I think it's always the primary responsibility of local government to assume the responsibility for planning and readiness, a test that New Orleans failed, as well as FEMA.

I'm no friend of the Bush administration, either. But a city that's below sea level should have comprehensive plans for evacuation, which FEMA could assist if necessary. I think all the relevant governments were not prepared, and therefore FEMA ought not to bear the brunt of the criticism.

FEMA also should not be subsumed by another government agency. It ought to be accountable only to the President.

pig · 09-07-2005, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by meembo

I'm sympathetic to much of what you say, but I think it's always the primary responsibility of local government to assume the responsibility for planning and readiness, a test that New Orleans failed, as well as FEMA.

I'm no friend of the Bush administration, either. But a city that's below sea level should have comprehensive plans for evacuation, which FEMA could assist if necessary. I think all the relevant governments were not prepared, and therefore FEMA ought not to bear the brunt of the criticism.

FEMA also should not be subsumed by another government agency. It ought to be accountable only to the President.

Hmmm...I basically agree and disagree with what you're saying. I agree with everything but the bolded part. I think that if your agency exists, purportedly (at least in the eyes of the local governments, in light of historical performance if nothing else) to deal with disaster and national emergency...and the locals drop the ball, you should be ready to jump in a knock the shit out. Expect the local government to be competent, but be prepared for them not to be. You can bitch them out later. But in the time of crisis, I just wish someone with enough authority to make a difference had done so...before 4 or 5 days went by. It's not like the hurricane happened in a vacuum...I can sit and watch this shit go down on TV, radio, the internet. How could authority figures not know it was seriously fucked up, and where is someone with the fortitude to get people moving. I just think it's a disgrace. I personally believe that with more power comes more responsibility...when your subordinates don't perform, reprimand and/or leapfrog. But get the job done.

edit : My html tags aren't working, and I don't have time to troubleshoot. The bolded part was about FEMA not bearing the brunt of the criticism. I think that National levels ultimately get hit for not taking responsibility after local efforts failed or were never in place to start with.

Elphaba · 09-07-2005, 05:02 PM

I am compelled to share some articles that I read today. The first one describes the number of ways that FEMA failed in it's response to Katrina, and the reasons behind that failure. There is some repetition here from previous posts, but the article pulls it all together, historically. As I have stated elsewhere, I am not in disagreement with folding FEMA into HS. I'm also a fiscal conservative and approve a small federal government with emphasis on state's rights and responsibilities. But what has resulted is not the once reputable FEMA.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20.../index_np.html

Quote:

Why FEMA Failed
By Farhad Manjoo
Salon.com

Wednesday 07 September 2005

Ideologically opposed to a strong federal role in disaster relief and obsessed with terrorism, the Bush administration let a once-admired agency fall apart.

Days before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, the city of Chicago drew up a list of resources it was willing to make available for relief efforts in areas that might be hit by the storm. Chicago told the Federal Emergency Management Agency that in the event of disaster, it could spare more than 100 Chicago police officers, 36 Fire Department personnel, eight emergency medical experts, more than 130 staff from Chicago's Department of Public Health, 140 staff from the Department of Streets & Sanitation, dozens of trucks and two boats. These teams, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley told federal officials, could work in affected areas independently, bringing their own food, water and other supplies with them. But FEMA apparently wasn't interested. Despite the host of resources Chicago offered, and despite the televised lack of resources in New Orleans, as of late last week, FEMA had requested only one thing from Chicago - a single tanker truck. "I was shocked," Daley said at a news conference on Friday. "We are ready to provide considerably more help than they have requested. We are just waiting for a call."

Daley wasn't the only generous donor to be rebuffed. Throughout last week, various local and state governments, corporations and nonprofit organizations across the nation attempted to help in the relief effort, only to be snubbed by federal officials - officials who were themselves providing precious little aid to those in need. Citing security concerns, the Department of Homeland Security barred the American Red Cross from entering New Orleans with food. Five hundred Floridian airboaters were ready to rescue people stranded in inundated homes, but FEMA turned them down. Twenty sheriff's deputies from Loudoun County, Va., suffered a similar fate. And Aaron Broussard, the president of Jefferson Parish, La., said on "Meet the Press" on Sunday that FEMA declined to let him accept three tanker trucks of water donated by Wal-Mart, as well as 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel stored in a Coast Guard vessel docked in his district.

During the 1990s, FEMA was routinely praised as one of the best-functioning federal agencies. Its response to the Midwestern floods of 1993, the Northridge earthquake of 1994, and 1995's Oklahoma City terrorist attack are considered models of emergency response. By contrast, its performance during Katrina is almost universally acknowledged to have been abysmally poor. At first, FEMA's post-Katrina failure appears baffling: What happened to the once-great FEMA? But George Haddow, who served as the deputy chief of staff at FEMA under James Lee Witt, Bill Clinton's FEMA director, thinks that FEMA's current flaws are all too understandable - and are a direct consequence of the Bush administration's decision to pull the federal government out of the natural disaster-relief business and turn over more power to state and local officials.

Indeed, the White House's new response to the political disaster prompted by Katrina - one in which officials are attempting to blame authorities in Louisiana, rather than in Washington, for the slow aid - underscores the Bush philosophy. According to Haddow, instead of working with local officials to try to minimize the impacts of an impending storm, the White House has decided its best strategy is to keep its distance from people on the ground. That way if anything goes wrong, the White House can "attack, attack, attack."

We began to see some of these attacks over the weekend. Sunday's Washington Post cited an anonymous Bush administration official who explained that one reason that the federal government didn't intervene more quickly in Louisiana was because Kathleen Blanco, the state's Democratic governor, failed to declare a state of emergency there, a necessary step for federal help to flow. An article in Newsweek repeats the same claim.

But there's a problem with the White House's excuse: It's patently false. As Josh Marshall points out, Blanco declared a state of emergency on Aug. 26 - a day before Bush declared a federal emergency in Louisiana. (You can see Blanco's official declaration in PDF format here; the Washington Post has corrected its article.) On Aug. 28 - the day before Katrina made landfall - Blanco followed her declaration with an official letter (PDF) to Bush that requested all manner of emergency supplies her state would need for the aftermath.

Haddow says that these requests should have been enough - more than enough - to prompt a full-scale federal response. Under the Clinton administration's FEMA, with Witt as the head, a storm of Katrina's magnitude would have prompted federal and state officials to actually meet in order to coordinate their response. "You were all working together to anticipate needs," Haddow says. "You're all sitting in the same room when the things happened - the Midwest flood, the Northridge quake, the Oklahoma City bombing and all the disasters we responded to. We were in the same room together and nobody had to point fingers."

Close coordination with state officials was key to the Clinton administration's capacity to act quickly in the heat of a disaster, Haddow says. "We had a really solid partnership, so we received solid, timely information from the ground. Then we managed that information and turned it into a mission assignment." In other words, when people on the ground needed something, they knew who in the federal government to ask, and when the federal government had extra resources at the ready - cops from Chicago, say, or water from Wal-Mart - it would know where to send them. Contrast that situation to what happened after Katrina, when both Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, and Michael Brown, the FEMA director, admitted to several reporters that they had no idea that people were starving at the New Orleans Convention Center, even though the grim scene there had been played and replayed on television all day.

The Bush administration's distance from local disaster-relief officials is by design. From the moment Bush stepped into office, he's been determined to move away from the coordinated state/local/federal disaster-relief approach used by Clinton. Instead, as Joe Allbaugh, Bush's first FEMA dirctor, told a congressional panel in 2001, Bush wanted to pull the federal government out of the disaster-relief business and aimed to "restore the predominant role of state and local response to most disasters." The federal government became even less involved in natural disaster relief after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when FEMA's mission was shifted toward responding to terrorist attacks. In 2002, Congress created the Department of Homeland Security, and FEMA - which Clinton had elevated to a Cabinet-level agency - was made one department in the massive bureaucracy. As a result, although George W. Bush has a nickname for FEMA director Brown ("Brownie"), Brown enjoys far less clout under Bush than Witt enjoyed under Clinton, which Haddow says is an "incalculable loss of influence" for FEMA.

State and local disaster-relief officials have been complaining about the lack of federal involvement in emergency response for some time. Trina Sheets, the executive director of the National Emergency Management Association, which represents local emergency personnel, told Salon that "since the Department of Homeland Security was established there has been a steady degradation of the capabilities." Local officials protested earlier this year, when the Department of Homeland Security proposed an internal reorganization that would officially absolve FEMA of its disaster-preparedness functions and instead hand disaster relief to a new agency. Sheets says that her group has expressed its "concern" about the move in a meeting with Chertoff. Other local disaster-relief directors have been more critical. The day after Katrina struck New Orleans, Eric Holdeman, director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management, wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post denouncing the reorganization plan as a "a death blow to an agency that was already on life support." He added: "Those of us in the business of dealing with emergencies find ourselves with no national leadership and no mentors."

Of particular concern to local officials is the administration's increasing focus on terrorism to the exclusion of natural disasters. A recent report by the Government Accountability Office showed that "almost 3 of every 4 grant dollars appropriated to the [Department of Homeland Security] for first responders in fiscal year 2005 were for 3 primary programs that had an explicit focus on terrorism." More than $2 billion in grant money is available to local governments looking to improve the way they respond to terrorist attacks, but only $180 million is available under the main grant program for natural disaster funding, Homeland Security's Emergency Management Performance Grant program. The administration had proposed cutting that amount to $170 million, even though NEMA had identified a $264 million national shortfall in natural-disaster funding.

"We have testified before Congress countless times, we have sent letters to DHS, we have met with Secretary Chertoff as recently as three weeks ago, pleading for a balanced approach between terrorism and natural disasters," Sheets said.

And balance, Haddow agrees, is what's needed. "You gotta do both," he says. "You've got to fight terrorism." But you've got to respond to hurricanes and earthquakes, too. And when Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana on the Saturday before Katrina struck the Gulf, he made a promise to residents that he would respond, Haddow says. "People died because they couldn't get it right," he says. "People died because they didn't deliver on their promise."

Elphaba · 09-07-2005, 05:15 PM

FEMA was able to respond to Pat Robertson with great spead, however. In another topic, Robertson's influence within the Republican party has been discussed at length.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/sto...p-293471c.html

Quote:

Disaster used as political payoff

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has done it again.

Already under fire for its woeful response to Hurricane Katrina, the federal disaster agency appears to have turned hurricane relief donations into a political payoff - until it was challenged.

All last week, FEMA bureaucrats gave prominent placement on the agency's Web site to Operation Blessing, the Virginia-based charity run by controversial right-wing evangelist and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson.

For anyone wishing to donate only cash, the agency's site listed the names and phone numbers of three groups: the Red Cross, Operation Blessing and America's Second Harvest, a national coalition of food banks.

That first list was followed by a second, longer list of several dozen religious and nonsectarian charities. This second list was for anyone who wanted to give either cash or noncash gifts.

Just as in an ordinary election, however, top ballot position makes it far more likely you'll get noticed and chosen.

The same FEMA list was then disseminated by state and local governments throughout the country. Both Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg, for example, placed the same top three FEMA charities on their Hurricane Katrina press releases and Web sites last week.

Those familiar with Robertson and his charity were flabbergasted.

Operation Blessing, with a budget of $190 million, is an integral part of the Robertson empire. Not only is he the chairman of the board, his wife is listed on its latest financial report as its vice president, and one of his sons is on the board of directors.

Back in 1994, during the infamous Rwandan genocide, Robertson used his 700 Club's daily cable operation to appeal to the American public for donations to fly humanitarian supplies into Zaire to save the Rwandan refugees.

The planes purchased by Operation Blessing did a lot more than ferry relief supplies.

An investigation conducted by the Virginia attorney general's office concluded in 1999 that the planes were mostly used to transport mining equipment for a diamond operation run by a for-profit company called African Development Corp.

And who do you think was the principal executive and sole shareholder of the mining company?

You guessed it, Pat Robertson himself.

Robertson had landed the mining concession from his longtime friend Mobutu Sese Seko, then the dictator of Zaire.

Investigators concluded that Operation Blessing "willfully induced contributions from the public through the use of misleading statements ..."

After the investigation began, Robertson placated state regulators by personally reimbursing his own charity $400,000 and by agreeing to tighten its bookkeeping methods.

Separating Operation Blessing from Robertson's many politically oriented endeavors is not that easy, however.

The biggest single U.S. recipient of the charity's largess, according to its latest financial report, was Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. It received $885,000 in the fiscal year ended March 2004.

Robertson uses that Christian network for some markedly unchristian purposes.

A few years back, he repeatedly defended Charles Taylor, the former brutal dictator of Liberia who is under indictment by a UN tribunal for war crimes.

As with Mobutu in the Congo, Robertson had a personal stake in the matter: He had millions invested in a Liberian gold mine, thanks to Taylor, according to press reports.

Recently, Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Those who know Robertson's record raised such an uproar that on Sunday FEMA suddenly rearranged its entire Web site for hurricane donations.

Gone was Operation Blessing's name and choice location. Replacing it was an alphabetical list of nearly 50 national relief organizations.

At FEMA, they take a while to get things right.

Originally published on September 6, 2005

Let's do a Robertson accounting, shall we. Diamonds in Zaire, gold in Liberia, and dollars to donuts Robertson had an interest in Venezuela oil before Chavez nationalized it. His continued influence in Republican political circles should be investigated, IMO.

Elphaba · 09-07-2005, 05:36 PM

I had already read an AP article in this morning's paper that "Brownie" requested 1,000 Homeland Security employees to be dispatched into the stricken region to "convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public."

I really wasn't ready for this additional PR move, however.

Quote:

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.

Federal officials are unapologetic.

"I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country," said FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak.

The firefighters - or at least the fire chiefs who assigned them to come to Atlanta - knew what the assignment would be, Hudak said.

"The initial call to action very specifically says we're looking for two-person fire teams to do community relations," she said. "So if there is a breakdown [in communication], it was likely in their own departments."

One fire chief from Texas agreed that the call was clear to work as community-relations officers. But he wonders why the 1,400 firefighters FEMA attracted to Atlanta aren't being put to better use. He also questioned why the U.S. Department of Homeland Security - of which FEMA is a part - has not responded better to the disaster.

The firefighters, several of whom are from Utah, were told to bring backpacks, sleeping bags, first-aid kits and Meals Ready to Eat. They were told to prepare for "austere conditions." Many of them came with awkward fire gear and expected to wade in floodwaters, sift through rubble and save lives.

"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."

The firefighter, who has encouraged his superiors back home not to send any more volunteers for now, declined to give his name because FEMA has warned them not to talk to reporters.

On Monday, two firefighters from South Jordan and two from Layton headed for San Antonio to help hurricane evacuees there. Four firefighters from Roy awaited their marching orders, crossing their fingers that they would get to do rescue and recovery work, rather than paperwork.

"A lot of people are bickering because there are rumors they'll just be handing out fliers," said Roy firefighter Logan Layne, adding that his squad hopes to be in the thick of the action. "But we'll do anything. We'll do whatever they need us to do."

While FEMA's community-relations job may be an important one - displaced hurricane victims need basic services and a variety of resources - it may be a job best suited for someone else, say firefighters assembled at the Sheraton.

"It's a misallocation of resources. Completely," said the Texas firefighter.

"It's just an under-utilization of very talented people," said South Salt Lake Fire Chief Steve Foote, who sent a team of firefighters to Atlanta. "I was hoping once they saw the level of people . . . they would shift gears a little bit."

Foote said his crews would be better used doing the jobs they are trained to do.

But Louis H. Botta, a coordinating officer for FEMA, said sending out firefighters on community relations makes sense. They already have had background checks and meet the qualifications to be sworn as a federal employee. They have medical training that will prove invaluable as they come across hurricane victims in the field.

A firefighter from California said he feels ill prepared to even carry out the job FEMA has assigned him. In the field, Hurricane Katrina victims will approach him with questions about everything from insurance claims to financial assistance.

"My only answer to them is, '1-800-621-FEMA,' " he said. "I'm not used to not being in the know."

Roy Fire Chief Jon Ritchie said his crews would be a "little frustrated" if they were assigned to hand out phone numbers at an evacuee center in Texas rather than find and treat victims of the disaster.

Also of concern to some of the firefighters is the cost borne by their municipalities in the wake of their absence. Cities are picking up the tab to fill the firefighters' vacancies while they work 30 days for the federal government.

"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.

lrosetta@sltrib.com

Now wait one friggin' minute. Don't we have Brownie's 1,000 PR folks already there? This is the most egregious use of highly trained rescue personnel that I have ever seen or heard of. Has FEMA become nothing more than a political PR department of the administration that can command the best of our country to do it's bidding?

Lebell · 09-08-2005, 03:33 PM

Apparently the LA state govt. deserves some more blame.

According to this article, LA (through the Army Corp. of engineers) has actually had more flood abatement funding under Bush than Clinton, but the legistlators have been funneling the money into porkbarrel projects...including funds meant for a project at the spot the levy broke.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/125/5602732.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Army's engineers spent millions on Louisiana projects labeled as pork
Michael Grunwald, Washington Post
September 8, 2005 CORPS0908

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers had launched a $748 million construction project at that very location. But the project had nothing to do with flood control. The Corps was building a massive new lock for the canal, an effort to accommodate steadily increasing barge traffic.

Except barge traffic on the canal has been steadily decreasing.

In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times larger.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.

For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways like the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that turns out to be less than forecast.

Most controversial

The Industrial Canal lock is one of the agency's most controversial projects, sued by residents of a New Orleans low-income black neighborhood and cited by an alliance of environmentalists and taxpayer advocates as the fifth-worst current Corps boondoggle. In 1998, the Corps justified its plan to build a new lock -- rather than fix the old lock for a tiny fraction of the cost -- by predicting huge increases in barge traffic.

In fact, barge traffic on the canal had been plummeting since 1994, but the Corps left that data out of its study. And barges have continued to avoid the canal since the study was finished, even though they are visiting the port in increased numbers.

Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, remembers holding a protest against the lock four years ago -- right where the levee broke last week. Now she's holed up with her family in a St. Louis hotel, and her neighborhood is underwater. "Our politicians never cared half as much about protecting us as they cared about pork," she said.

Wednesday, congressional defenders of the Corps said they hoped the fallout from Hurricane Katrina would pave the way for billions of dollars of additional spending on water projects. Steve Ellis, a Corps critic with Taxpayers for Common Sense, called their push "the legislative equivalent of looting."

Louisiana's politicians have requested much more money for New Orleans hurricane protection than the Bush administration has proposed or Congress has provided. In the last budget bill, Louisiana's delegation requested $27.1 million for shoring up levees around Lake Pontchartrain, the full amount the Corps had declared as its "project capability." Bush suggested $3.9 million, and Congress agreed to spend $5.7 million.

Administration officials also scaled back a long-term project to restore Louisiana's disappearing coastal marshes, which once provided a measure of natural hurricane protection for New Orleans. They ordered the Corps to stop work on a $14 billion plan and devise a $2 billion plan instead.

Levees only so strong

But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were only designed to protect against a Category 3 storm. Strock also has said the marsh restoration project would not have done much to diminish Katrina's storm surge, which passed east of the coastal wetlands.

"The project manager for the Great Pyramids probably put in a request for 100 million shekels and only got 50 million," said John Paul Woodley Jr., the Bush administration official overseeing the Corps. "Flood protection is always a work in progress; on any given day, if you ask whether any community has all the protection it needs, the answer is almost always: Maybe, but maybe not."

The Corps had been studying the possibility of upgrading the New Orleans levees for a higher level of protection before Katrina hit, but Woodley said that study would not have been finished for years. Still, liberal bloggers, Democratic politicians and some Republican defenders of the Corps have linked the catastrophe to the underfunding of the agency.

"We've been hollering about funding for years, but everyone would say: There goes Louisiana again, asking for more money," said former Democratic senator John Breaux. "We've had some powerful people in powerful places, but we never got what we needed."

powerclown · 09-08-2005, 04:44 PM

Looks like Louisiana failed FEMA.

filtherton · 09-08-2005, 05:12 PM

The article is about misappropriation of army corps of engineer funding. It does nothing to let FEMA off the hook, it still responded way too groggily.

Marvelous Marv · 09-08-2005, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell

But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were only designed to protect against a Category 3 storm. Strock also has said the marsh restoration project would not have done much to diminish Katrina's storm surge, which passed east of the coastal wetlands.

There you have the typical Democratic twisting of facts. Yes, I made up the following numbers to illustrate the spin:

"We got $5 million from Clinton. We asked for $10 million from Bush. Bush only gave us $5.5 million. BUSH CUT OUR FUNDS!!!"

pan6467 · 09-08-2005, 05:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv

There you have the typical Democratic twisting of facts. Yes, I made up the following numbers to illustrate the spin:

"We got $5 million from Clinton. We asked for $10 million from Bush. Bush only gave us $5.5 million. BUSH CUT OUR FUNDS!!!"

(Not to pick on just your post...... but it was easiest and shortest to quote)

Who the F cares?????

What we have here are 1000's dead and dying and fucking fingers being pointed.

Yes, FEMA fucked up..... yes, Bush fucked up and yes, the governor fucked up....

NOW IS THAT GOING TO SAVE ANYONE????????

FUCK NO!!!!!!!!!

Get FEMA off their ass and allow the luxury liners, the water, the diesel fuel, the first responders from other states to come in. Let the Cuban Doctors in, let the other countries help us..... Hey Zeus Freckling Crisp, they are doing so to show caring and support....... that's far more than the victims got from OUR GODDAMNED IDIOT POLITICIANS AND THE FUCKING TALKING HEADS WHO KEEP POINTING FINGERS AND DOING SHIT.........

Stop pointing those GODDAMNED fingers and fucking do something, Hey Zeus Freckling Crisp, are we so divided in this country that we're willing to let 1000's upon 1000's die just so a mother fucking political party can take advantage of the tragedy?????

WTF????? Last time I checked, the people dying were PEOPLE not political philosophies, not some fucking religious martyrs,...... FUCKING PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND I..... DESERVING TO HAVE OUR COUNTRY'S GOVERNMENT AND THEIR STATE'S WORKING TOGETHER AND FUCKING HELPING THEM......

Not have everyone point fingers and blame the other side...... WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO SOMEONE BEING BETTER AND JUST TAKING THE HIGH ROAD AND LETTING THE OTHER SIDE EITHER KEEP WALLOWING OR FOLLOW??????????

I am sickened by this and by the holier than thou attitudes from some people on here, the media and real life, who believe they can point fingers and show that their political party was right......

FUCK THAT...... 1000'S ARE DEAD

You want to be right?????

Tell the 1000's upon 1000's that lost everything, and the people that died your side was fucking right and that you were to busy playing politics to FUCKING HELP THEM!!!!!!!!!!

You want to be "the one who cared the most", yet pointed fingers and did shit (BOTH parties are guilty).

I am very ashamed and disappointed to be an American today......

raveneye · 09-08-2005, 06:16 PM

While I believe (and always have said) that all levels of government are at fault here, the fact is that the problems within New Orleans are specific to New Orleans. The faults of New Orleans are pretty likely going to be irrelevant to the next hurricane or terrorist attack, which could occur anywhere. However the faults of FEMA and the current administration will be anything but irrelevant to the next disaster or terrorist attack. They will rather be center stage again.

So if you want to think in terms of risk: failure to quickly correct the faults of FEMA carries much greater immediate risk to American citizens than failure to quickly correct the faults of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans, which is likely not to experience another Katrina for 300 years.

My feeling is that if we are truly concerned about improving our current emergency preparedness in order to save American lives, we need to focus most or our attention on the federal government.

Elphaba · 09-08-2005, 06:49 PM

I agree completely that FEMA needs to be reconstituted into the agency it once was. Given that the hurricane season isn't over yet, the dangers to the gulf coast states need to remain upper most in current disaster planning. My question is whether we have any central coordinating agency to deal with the next hurricane *this* year.

alansmithee · 09-08-2005, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

Stop pointing those GODDAMNED fingers and fucking do something, Hey Zeus Freckling Crisp, are we so divided in this country that we're willing to let 1000's upon 1000's die just so a mother fucking political party can take advantage of the tragedy?????

If they're poor blacks, yup.

Quote:

WTF????? Last time I checked, the people dying were PEOPLE not political philosophies, not some fucking religious martyrs,...... FUCKING PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND I..... DESERVING TO HAVE OUR COUNTRY'S GOVERNMENT AND THEIR STATE'S WORKING TOGETHER AND FUCKING HELPING THEM......

They're not people, they're BLACK people. A key difference.

pan6467 · 09-09-2005, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alansmithee

If they're poor blacks, yup.

They're not people, they're BLACK people. A key difference.

This is the BS I'm talking about (btw you are saying there are absolutely no whites there?????). THEY ARE FUCKING PEOPLE......

Black, white, purple, blue, red, yellow, polka dot..... who the fuck cares??????? 1000's are dead and dying, wading in raw sewage trying to just live and THIS is all you can say?????????

If it were you and you lost everything you owned, had to tread water for 5 days and watched people fucking die before your eyes......... don't you think you deserve some fucking help from our Goddamned government and not fingers being pointed at your race? And so what if they are the ones pointing it out..... I don't give a flying fuck, they need fucking help. THEY ARE PEOPLE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD THEY DESERVE AND NEED OUR HELP AND WE'RE GOING TO SIT AND ARGUE OVER PARTY AND RACE???????

The fucking racism (both sides) on this board and in this country is fucking pathetic. I thought we were getting past all this.

From what you posted, all I have left to say is I pray you never have to go through what those PEOPLE had to and shall have to.

09-02-2005, 01:52 PM	#45 (permalink)
Stompy Banned from being Banned Location: Donkey	Are people really surprised at this? Our country is horrible at handling disasters mainly because those who SHOULD be prepared are too arrogant in thinking it will never happen, or the methods they have in place are sufficient enough. 9/11 proved otherwise. You'd figure after that, our country would have a better grip on how to handle disaster areas - we don't. Why? Nothing is different. Because all this time you've been thinking you're much safer when in reality it's just not true. At least 9/11 was a unique case in that they didn't know how to handle buildings collapsing in the midst of a populated city like NYC - so not being ready is understandable (to a point). In a situation like this... there's no excuse. It's no surprise that area of the country gets slammed each year by hurricanes. You would think those in charge would have a plan to prepare for the worst - assume each hurricane is a class 5. Shit, I know if I was living in or in charge of a city BELOW SEA LEVEL, I'd wanna make sure the man-made structures in place can withstand the highest natural disaster - that didn't happen. Bad move and ignorance on their part. As for the fed govt taking their sweet ass time gettin there... again, no surprise. They should've been ready for the worst when the hurricane was first announced. ALWAYS have troops and supplies ready to go because you don't know what's gonna happen - they failed in that aspect. We simply don't know how to handle crisis situations and live under the illusion that when something bad happens, the govt will wave a magic wand and fix it all. They're just as clueless as we are. __________________ I love lamp.

09-02-2005, 03:44 PM	#47 (permalink)
docbungle It's all downhill from here Location: Denver	This is hilarious. Mother nature decided to royally fuck shit up, and everyone here seems to want to turn it into a political argument. I don't care if you have a million people helping out in New Orleans and the surrounding areas, there is no way to prepare for shit like this in a satisfactory manner. It is going to be chaos, regardless of where the president is or who the president is or how many precautions a governor made beforehand. It is going to take some time to figure out what in the hell people are supposed to do and figure out how in the hell they are supposed to do it. You can't just throw money at this disaster and expect it to get fixed. You also cant just throw people at it and expect it to get fixed. No matter how much you think you can control these types of situations, you just cant. __________________ Bad Luck City

09-02-2005, 06:23 PM	#52 (permalink)
irateplatypus can't help but laugh Location: dar al-harb	i'm startled at how many people seem think it's the federal government's role to protect us from natural phenomena. __________________ If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. ~ Winston Churchill

09-02-2005, 07:18 PM	#54 (permalink)
irateplatypus can't help but laugh Location: dar al-harb	yes, that's exactly what i mean. i'm not absolving the federal government from all involvement, but the whining and complaining about the level of federal support is making me nauseous. __________________ If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. ~ Winston Churchill

09-03-2005, 09:55 AM	#58 (permalink)
j8ear Gentlemen Farmer Location: Middle of nowhere, Jersey	What kind of anarchist are you anyway? A big government anarchist? -bear __________________ It's alot easier to ask for forgiveness then it is to ask for permission.

09-03-2005, 10:00 AM	#59 (permalink)
tecoyah Illusionary	well....obviously this thread has gone beyond the point of useful information. I seriously wanted to get a feel for whether or not people felt FEMA did its job....and appreciate the replys. Re-opened at member request __________________ Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha Last edited by tecoyah; 09-07-2005 at 05:23 AM..

09-07-2005, 11:16 AM	#62 (permalink)
tecoyah Illusionary	As much as I have wanted to post that^^^^^^I didnt. Thanx Bill. __________________ Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

09-07-2005, 12:17 PM	#64 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	I think there is plenty of blame to go around from the top (Bush) on down to FEMA, to the Govenor, the Mayor and many individuals on the ground. Regardless of what Bush was supposed to do he failed with regards to the PR on this. He should have dropped everything and rushed back to DC to "coordinate" efforts. This was a national disaster and he should have at least appeared to be on the ball. His handlers failed him and for a leader who has shown an uncanny ability to control his image in the media, this is BIG. FEMA appeared to operate like a chicken with its head cut off. Despite declarations of Distaster Areas from both Federal and State levels the help didn't seem to flow fast enough. It seems it was tied up in paperwork and mismanagement. Seems to me that if you are going to have an agency of this nature it should be able to get shit done when it matters most. It did work in the past so I can only assume (at this point) that when something works you shouldn't fix it... Homeland Security has some 'splaining to do. As does Bush for appointing the yahoo in charge of FEMA, this seems like one postion that should have an expert rather than a crony or someone who gives good campaign finance. The Govenor and the Mayor... they both seem to be trying hard but it just isn't enough. I get the feeling that they are a lot like the people on the ground who just never thought it could get this bad. In the end... they really should have been more prepared and made more effort on getting people out of harms way. Martial Law should have been declared immediately after the storm had passed and National Guards should have been preped and on standby days BEFORE the storm. You can always send them home if they aren't needed. The people who stayed behind. I don't blame them, like some do for staying. I do blame those who would loot and shoot at rescue efforts. Unlike other areas, where communities banded together, certain elements of New Orleans behaved like they were in a Living Dead film. I am glad to hear that Bush has called for an inquest into what happened. At least he seems to be back on track -- looking like he's doing something. In the end, regardless of who is to blame the storm was a disaster, the organization of the rescue and post-storm support was a tragedy. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

09-07-2005, 02:07 PM	#65 (permalink)
meembo Junkie Location: Connecticut	I think the other shoe has to drop. FEMA failed, but so did local government. The mayor and governor clearly weren't communicating well or coordinating services, and neither of them actually requested help from FEMA in anticipation of being overwhelmed, as they are required to do -- FEMA doesn't mobilize until they are asked to by local governments. I haven't seen any evidence that New Orleans has/had a plan to evacuate the poor and the elderly, both of which are chronic concerns of the city. In the end, I think there will be a new definition of "mandatory evacuation" in the face of a natural disaster, and who is responsible for the cost of such a big undertaking. __________________ less I say, smarter I am

09-07-2005, 02:21 PM	#66 (permalink)
pig pigglet pigglet Location: Locash	I've been waiting out this topic a bit, but I have to say that I do think that ultimately we are seeing a systemic failure on a national level. I think the response of FEMA has inadequate, and from I can see its potentially symptomatic of the national agencies expecting / trying to transition to a more local-oriented response, and the local levels expecting more federal involvement. End result : no one takes responsibility. In a state of transition, no one knew where the responsibility lay, everyone thought it was someone else's job, and no one ponied up and took responsibility. That's what I find so appalling. I personally don't hold the mayor as accountable as it seems some do (he seems to have been fairly vocal in expressing the needs of his city) - but I would be curious to know how much previous mayors and governors in disaster areas have had to personally head up evacuations? In previous situations, before the re-alignment of FEMA in the DHS, was their role mostly to make calls to the Feds and then following orders that the Feds passed down? I'll admit I'm not a fan of the current administration. Regardless of my feelings on other political topics, I don't feel this is political. I am appalled by the lack of leadership that has been displayed on the national level. I would think that after the federal and state levels of emergency were declared, that if I were the head of FEMA and I saw practically nothing being done to get the relief in, I would calling everyone I could think of to get the ball rolling. And if I were the President, or the head of Homeland Security, and the guy underneath me wasn't making the calls - I would call his ass, and I would make the appropriate calls to get the process started. Even if the state and city totalled fucked up, if I had the authority to take over (which they did after the States of Emergency were issued) I'd like to think I'd do what was necessary to get the relief in. It may not be part of Bush's resume. It may not be part of Chertoff's resume. In my opinion, a part of leadership is going above and beyond in critical times to make sure that the appropriate actions are taken, even if it's not your job. __________________ You don't love me, you just love my piggy style Last edited by pig; 09-07-2005 at 02:35 PM..

09-08-2005, 03:33 PM	#72 (permalink)
Lebell Cracking the Whip Location: Sexymama's arms...	Apparently the LA state govt. deserves some more blame. According to this article, LA (through the Army Corp. of engineers) has actually had more flood abatement funding under Bush than Clinton, but the legistlators have been funneling the money into porkbarrel projects...including funds meant for a project at the spot the levy broke. http://www.startribune.com/stories/125/5602732.html -------------------------------------------------------------------- Army's engineers spent millions on Louisiana projects labeled as pork Michael Grunwald, Washington Post September 8, 2005 CORPS0908 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers had launched a $748 million construction project at that very location. But the project had nothing to do with flood control. The Corps was building a massive new lock for the canal, an effort to accommodate steadily increasing barge traffic. Except barge traffic on the canal has been steadily decreasing. In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times larger. Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon. For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways like the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that turns out to be less than forecast. Most controversial The Industrial Canal lock is one of the agency's most controversial projects, sued by residents of a New Orleans low-income black neighborhood and cited by an alliance of environmentalists and taxpayer advocates as the fifth-worst current Corps boondoggle. In 1998, the Corps justified its plan to build a new lock -- rather than fix the old lock for a tiny fraction of the cost -- by predicting huge increases in barge traffic. In fact, barge traffic on the canal had been plummeting since 1994, but the Corps left that data out of its study. And barges have continued to avoid the canal since the study was finished, even though they are visiting the port in increased numbers. Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, remembers holding a protest against the lock four years ago -- right where the levee broke last week. Now she's holed up with her family in a St. Louis hotel, and her neighborhood is underwater. "Our politicians never cared half as much about protecting us as they cared about pork," she said. Wednesday, congressional defenders of the Corps said they hoped the fallout from Hurricane Katrina would pave the way for billions of dollars of additional spending on water projects. Steve Ellis, a Corps critic with Taxpayers for Common Sense, called their push "the legislative equivalent of looting." Louisiana's politicians have requested much more money for New Orleans hurricane protection than the Bush administration has proposed or Congress has provided. In the last budget bill, Louisiana's delegation requested $27.1 million for shoring up levees around Lake Pontchartrain, the full amount the Corps had declared as its "project capability." Bush suggested $3.9 million, and Congress agreed to spend $5.7 million. Administration officials also scaled back a long-term project to restore Louisiana's disappearing coastal marshes, which once provided a measure of natural hurricane protection for New Orleans. They ordered the Corps to stop work on a $14 billion plan and devise a $2 billion plan instead. Levees only so strong But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were only designed to protect against a Category 3 storm. Strock also has said the marsh restoration project would not have done much to diminish Katrina's storm surge, which passed east of the coastal wetlands. "The project manager for the Great Pyramids probably put in a request for 100 million shekels and only got 50 million," said John Paul Woodley Jr., the Bush administration official overseeing the Corps. "Flood protection is always a work in progress; on any given day, if you ask whether any community has all the protection it needs, the answer is almost always: Maybe, but maybe not." The Corps had been studying the possibility of upgrading the New Orleans levees for a higher level of protection before Katrina hit, but Woodley said that study would not have been finished for years. Still, liberal bloggers, Democratic politicians and some Republican defenders of the Corps have linked the catastrophe to the underfunding of the agency. "We've been hollering about funding for years, but everyone would say: There goes Louisiana again, asking for more money," said former Democratic senator John Breaux. "We've had some powerful people in powerful places, but we never got what we needed." __________________ "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU! Please Donate!

09-08-2005, 04:44 PM	#73 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	Looks like Louisiana failed FEMA.

09-08-2005, 05:12 PM	#74 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	The article is about misappropriation of army corps of engineer funding. It does nothing to let FEMA off the hook, it still responded way too groggily.

09-08-2005, 06:16 PM	#77 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	While I believe (and always have said) that all levels of government are at fault here, the fact is that the problems within New Orleans are specific to New Orleans. The faults of New Orleans are pretty likely going to be irrelevant to the next hurricane or terrorist attack, which could occur anywhere. However the faults of FEMA and the current administration will be anything but irrelevant to the next disaster or terrorist attack. They will rather be center stage again. So if you want to think in terms of risk: failure to quickly correct the faults of FEMA carries much greater immediate risk to American citizens than failure to quickly correct the faults of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans, which is likely not to experience another Katrina for 300 years. My feeling is that if we are truly concerned about improving our current emergency preparedness in order to save American lives, we need to focus most or our attention on the federal government.

09-08-2005, 06:49 PM	#78 (permalink)
Elphaba Deja Moo Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA	I agree completely that FEMA needs to be reconstituted into the agency it once was. Given that the hurricane season isn't over yet, the dangers to the gulf coast states need to remain upper most in current disaster planning. My question is whether we have any central coordinating agency to deal with the next hurricane this year.