From failed Republican congressional candidate to ousted “czar” of an Arabian horse association, there was little in Michael D. Brown’s background to prepare him for the fury of Hurricane Katrina.
But as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brown now faces furious criticism of the federal response to the disaster that wiped out New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast. He provoked some of it himself when he conceded that FEMA didn’t know that thousands of evacuees were trapped at New Orleans’ convention center without food or water.
“He’s done a hell of a job, because I’m not aware of any Arabian horses being killed in this storm,” said Kate Hale, former Miami-Dade emergency management chief who oversaw emergency response during Hurricane Andrew in 1992. “The world that this man operated in and the focus of this work does not in any way translate to this. He does not have the experience.”
But Hewitt’s questions are off-base. I have not suggested that federal government has a “police power,” that it should have ordered the evacuation (I have said repeatedly that Nagin should have ordered it sooner), that he should have called in the national guard sooner, that he should have done X or Y or Z with the police department, etc. etc. I have generally reserved judgment on the various substantive issues that those questions relate to, believing that I don’t have the information yet to answer them. What I criticized Brown for is his own idiotic/untruthful statements. There is nothing in federalism which protects him from accountability for clearly demonstrating that he has no grasp of WTF is going on.
P.S. I’ve also posted that I think this may well be a political disaster for Bush, but I explicitly noted that I was discussing public perceptions and reserving judgment on the reality of who is to blame. Saying “X will be a political disaster” is not the same thing as saying “X should be a political disaster,” and I made it clear that I was saying the latter rather than the former.
Perhaps I’m forgetting something I’ve posted, but I will be surprised if you can point me to a statement I’ve made where I said anything that betrays a lack of understanding of the concept of federalism. I have ruthlessly criticized clear incompetence on the part of the part of administration officials, but have not claimed that they should have done such-and-such which they did not have the power to do.
It appears that the mayor of New Orleans may have taken too many lessons from Kate Hale.
By the way, reason is hardly a rightwing magazine.
Note the most relevant paragraphs below. More than a couple of parallels.
“It was a truly inspired bit of theater that finally cornered Bush. On August 27, three days after the hurricane, Kate Hale, the head of Dade County’s Emergency Management Office, called a press conference. “I want this live!” she snapped at the waiting television crews as she marched into the briefing room. The TV crews obediently began feeding their signals, and Hale climbed onto a chair and launched a scathing attack on the White House. “Enough is enough!” she shouted. “Quit playing like a bunch of kids!” As the cameras pulled in tight for a close-up, tears conveniently welled in her eyes. “Where in the hell is the cavalry?” she demanded. “For God’s sakes, where are they? We’re going to have more casualties because we’re going to have more people dehydrated. People without water. People without food. Babies without formula….I am not the disaster czar down here. President Bush was down here. I’d like him to follow up on the commitments he made.”
Predictably, Hale’s performance won rave reviews in the Miami news media. The Miami Herald said it was a “movie plea for aid, desperate but determined” and called Hale “a hero to many.” Certainly she was effective: Within an hour, Bush promised to send in the U.S. Army.
But there was much that Hale didn’t mention during her tearful soliloquy. First and foremost was the reason that the U.S. Army wasn’t on the scene: No one in Florida had asked for it. American presidents, with good reason, do not treat local jurisdictions like conquered territories, subject to military occupation at the whim of the White House. Even in civil disturbances, where the military’s primary skill–shooting people–is far more relevant than it is in a natural catastrophe, it’s rare to see federal troops.
Not only had Florida officials not asked for troops, they had specifically said they didn’t want any. The Florida National Guard’s hurricane log shows that on August 25, a Guard officer briefing a U.S. Army counterpart told him: “Florida has not requested any support from other states or federal agencies, nor do we project a need.”"
Perhaps, FEMA AND HOMELAND SECURITY WERE NOT, I REPEAT, NOT GETTING THE TRUTH FROM THE LOCAL’S LIKE THE MAYOR AND GOVENOR. OR PERHAPS JUST NOT GETTING ANY INFO FROM THEM. PERHAPS, THAT IS WHY THE PRESIDENT SAID TODAY THAT WE HAVE TO BE ABLE TO WORK WITH THE LOCAL AND STATE OFFICIAL’S IN ORDER TO GET THE WORK DONE. WHO WOULD EVER THINK THAT SUCH FINE PEOPLE LIKE THE MAYOR OR GOVENOR WOULD DO SUCH A THING. ????
You mean like the Governor of Mississippi and the Mayor of Biloxi? Trent Lott is on TV now begging for help.
Also, the first people on the scene were the Coast Guard and the Army Corp of Engineers. Last time I looked, the Coast Guard reports to the Secretary of Homeland Security. Don’t you think the Secretary would have noted the disconnect between what the Coast Guard was telling him and what local authorities were telling him?
As to evacuations and police power. Before hurricane Floyd hit in ‘99 Clinton ordered the evacuation of 3 million people 72 hours prior to the hurricane making landfall in the North East.
In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. The new Department will also prioritize the important issue of citizen preparedness. Educating America’s families on how best to prepare their homes for a disaster and tips for citizens on how to respond in a crisis will be given special attention at DHS.”
They wrote the rules. They should live up to them. DHS has “primary responsibility …” Hewitt should stop passing the buck (and he could lay off the straw men as well).
According to DHS, the top three things to worry about are a terrorist attack in New York, an earthquake in SF or a hurricane in New Orleans. If this is their priority, I’d hate to see what would happen in Cape Fear or some place like that.
The article from Reason Magazine is right on. Remember this article a few months from now when the same thing happens in New Orleans. As for McClellanville, it’s the same type of circumstances that befell the City I work for when we experienced a tornado around 10 years ago. The 3 biggest pain in the asses were -
1- Media looking for a human story and expecting City residents to wring their hands and point fingers of blame.
2 - The ghouls who showed up wanting to look at tornado damage, people in distress, and generally making a total nuisance of themselves.
3- FEMA. I still remember the lady in charge who did nothing but smoke cigerettes and talk on the phone to God knows who. By the time FEMA got around to doing anything, local residents and volunteers from other areas already had things somewhat under control. Say what you will about FEMA, but they will never be as well equipped to respond to a disaster as fast as local & state governments. Unless those goverments are totally imcompetant. And anyone who expects them to is not dealing with reality.
I understand that Nagin used to be a Cable Company manager or owner. That must be why he was unable to carry out his duty to the citizens of New Orleans.
Has anyone heard about Nagin’s previous resume in the news?
the linked article neither proves nor disproves the statement. There was a mass evacuation of the Easter sea board in advance of the Hurricane according to said article. The person or persons responsible for that are not stated.
from: “dms”, one the posters on ’stool pigeons message board — mark to market’
–post 298 on 9 5 2005 at 9 52 pm
“Interesting counterpoint to the New Orleans response…
The Great Earthquake of 1906 struck San Francisco at 5:13 AM on April 18.
—First Army troops from Fort Mason reported to Mayor Schmitz at the Hall of Justice around 7 a.m.
—At 8 a.m., the 10th, 29th, 38th, 66th, 67th, 70th and 105th Companies of Coast Artillery, Troops I and K of the 14th Cavalry and the First, Ninth and 24th Batteries of Field Artillery arrived Downtown to take up patrol.
—At 10 a.m. Headquarters and First Battalion 22nd Infantry, were brought from Ft. McDowell by boat.
—At about 10:05 a.m. the DeForest Wireless Telegraph Station at San Diego radioed press reports of the disaster at San Francisco to the ìU.S.S. Chicago.î Admiral Caspar Goodrich immediately ordered fires started under all boilers, and after a confirmation message from the Mayor of San Diego, the ìChicagoî steamed at full speed for San Francisco.
—At 10:30 a.m., the ìU.S.S. Prebleî from Mare Island, under the command of Lt. Frederick Newton Freeman, landed a hospital shore party at the foot of Howard St. to help the wounded and dying.
—Fort Miley troops, the 25th and 64th Companies Coast Artillery, arrived at 11:30 a.m.
—By 11 AM large parts of the city were on fire; troops continued to arrive throughout the day, evacuating people from the areas threatened by fire to emergency shelters and Golden Gate Park.
—St. Mary’s hospital was destroyed by the fire at 1 PM, with no loss of life, the staff and patients having already been evacuated across the bay to Oakland.
—At 8:40 PM General Funston requested emergency housing - tents and shelters - from the War Department in Washington; all of the tents in the U.S. Army were on their way to San Francisco by 4:55 AM the next morning.
—Prisoners were evacuated to Alcatraz, and by April 20 (two days after the earthquake) the USS Chicago had reached San Francisco, where it evacuated 20,000 refugees.
Of course, communications were primitive back then and the nation was not nearly as wealthy and sophisticated as it is today. So it is understandable that the response in 1906 wasn’t nearly what it was in 2005.”
“the three days of supplies people were suppose to store behind the duct tape”
I don’t think they were making fun of storing food. I think they were making fun of the idiocy of trying to seal your house from a nuke by using duct tape. If you can’t tell the difference, maybe you shouldn’t be staying up past your 9pm bedtime to watch John Stewart.
The comparison of Katrina to the earthquake in San Francisco is fun.
Anybody have time to compare the preparation and response Louisiana and New Orleans officials to the preparation and response of other state and municipal officials to other areas that have been hit by natural disasters.
That would probably be a damning indictment of Louisiana officials.
Care to explain exactly why they are irrelavent? Seems to me we are talking about two comparable natural disasters, both of which required federal response, and comparing the preparedness of both.
roswell eldridge md - an interesting comparison, indeed … I wonder how the Federal Army in California, if those particular troops were Fed and not State, got around Posse Comitatus restrictions ?
Could it be that the local State authorities, at State and City levels, had arranged disaster scenarios with the Feds in advance, perhaps ?
And if they were National Guard rather than Fed, then perhaps the local (California) State Governor had his thumb out of his fundament and ordered them in, as would have been both his authority and his duty ?
(It’s just TOO easy!)
David - that certainly was a very quick response to “the earthquake of 1908″ - seemingly arriving 2 full years before the event itself …
And now back to the serious part …
David - in what the good doctor (or good resident of Maryland) commented, none of it referred to the President being involved directly … and all of it referred to the troops being encouraged and invited to help by the responsible local authorities …
Contrast that with New Orleans, where, as I understand it, Governor Blanco and state level officials are on record as having declined offers of assistance from the Feds … “Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state’s emergency operations center said Saturday.
The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. “Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,” said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.
The best line is - “Evacuation presents unique and distinct challenges”
Thats quite an understatement.
It’s a pretty generic emergency plan, with vague references to what City officials and Departments were responsible for. Looks like it was written the night before to satisfy some State or Federal requirement.
Dave - In regards to your question, I wouldn’t even begin to make a judgement of comparision between these two events based on your three points. There are two many variables at work, namely, the 100 years that separate the events and the basic difference of how people acted/reacted to disasters at that time.
It’s like wondering if Cy Young could win 511 games today or Barry Bonds could pull balls deep to rightfield in 1910.
David, check the news. Apparently Nagin was on CNN this morning spilling the goods on how Blanco twiddled her thumbs while Bush personally pushed for giving the feds more power to respond, and she wanted “24 hours” to *think* about it. Bush finally called Saturday night and said Order The Evacuation NOW.
As for after the hurricane, quite obviously FEMA sucked ass. If you want to blame Bush for appointing a nincompoop to head FEMA, go right ahead, but that’s pretty much the extent to which you can blame the Bush administration for this mess. The rest falls on Nagin’s and Blanco’s shoulders.
Mad Max, Biloxi and Gulfport weren’t expected to be underwater after the hurricane had moved on. You can’t blame the governor for people wanting to stick it out if it’s just normal hurricane winds, but storm surge and Lake New Orleans? Failing to force earlier evacuations for that scenario is almost criminal.
“an interesting comparison, indeed … I wonder how the Federal Army in California, if those particular troops were Fed and not State, got around Posse Comitatus restrictions ?”
The troops were in the U.S. - Not Iraq. Teddy Roosevelt telegraphed the Governor of California and said, “Use what you need.” The Governor did.
This is in stark contrast to the fuckfest that occurred this past week on the Gulf Coast when Bush was, once again, AWOL.
“It’s like wondering if Cy Young could win 511 games today or Barry Bonds could pull balls deep to rightfield in 1910.”
Doug-If Barry Bonds was alive 100 years ago, he’d be drivin’ Miss Barbara Bush around in her Tin Lizzy and sayin, “Yes’m.” That’s how the Bushes would like it, anyway.
Andrew - I can absolutely do it. If the Governor of Lousiana was a Republican and the Governor of Mississippi was a Democrat you would be bitching about Mississippi’s criminal negligence and praising the LA governor’s resourcefulness. You RNC tools are all the same. At least I believe there was a screw up at all levels. You guys can’t see passed your rabid loyalty to Bush.
Au contraire Max, you can’t see past your rabid hatred for Bush.
The evidence so far indicates Bush pushed for Blanco to order the evacuation earlier than they did, and that he pushed for more federal control in the aftermath. In both cases, Blanco resisted due to presumably partisan politics.
With Barbour, again, Mississippi is not underwater. Barbour ordered mandatory evacuations. The issue is not that some people chose to risk their lives by staying, the issue is a city drowned in a toxic stew. Even if Barbour hadn’t ordered evacuations in Mississippi, what happened there is irrelevant to the subject at hand.
Mad Max - quit living down to your last two initials !
The Prez isn’t *allowed* to order the poor bused anywhere … he’s the Executive Branch, not the Legislative ! He has to follow the Law as much as any of us - and probably more, since most of the MSM weenies are microscopically examining everything he says and does so that they can nit-pick some more …
I think we can fairly safely work out that the Prez didn’t order the local school buses to stay locked up somewhere until they were in 4 feet of water, however …
Still, Mad Max may know different, since he apparently had intimate knowledge of Prez Teddy’s phone conversations …
Now, there seems to be a possible disagreement with what MM:BS wrote …
At this site , they quote “San Francisco Mayor Eugene Schmitz quickly issued a bold proclamation to the city: “The Federal Troops, the members of the Regular Police Force and all Special Police Officers have been authorized by me to KILL any and all persons found engaged in Looting or in the Commission of Any Other Crime.” Within two hours of the initial earthquake, Army troops were posted along Market Street, two men to a block, and Presidio troops marched into the city. “ which sounds more like the response of rational local authorities.
Others more expert can correct me on this, but I suspect that the city mayor’s request for help from Federal Troops would satisfy the requirements fo legality with respect to Posse Comitatus, would it not ?
I wonder which authority has more credibility - the NPS ? or Mad Max BS ?
Look, I agree with you that Brown said moronic things about the nature of Katrina, and also that he lacks the credentials for the job — Arabian horses and all that.
However. I do NOT blame him for not having known all those people were at the convention center. Chertoff had been conferencing with the Gov and Mayor that day Brown said he lacked this knowledge, and NO ONE local had said a word about anyone being in need of rescue at the convention center. Until CNN reported it late Thurs, who outside of the hell zone did know? Whatever Brown’s faults, I’m not going to blame him for not being able to beam himself to New Orleans to find all locations of those in need at that time. It was *reasonable* of him to rely on locals to tell FEMA where they needed to go.
Regarding the mandatory evacuations, they were late coming. But we’d still be witnessing this mess because NO ONE WOULD HAVE LEFT! Good grief, people STILL AREN’T LEAVING! You think a mandatory evacuation would have been effective if only it had been called for earlier? These people won’t leave even when their house is an island in the middle of a toxic cesspool.
I remember hearing when the evacuation was ordered that officials were giddy that they got an 80% evacuation rate! So stop debating the time line of the evacuation. Bottom line is that the number of people who stayed is what planners optimistically hoped for and planned for.
And as far as Brown is concerned, nobody complained about his resume in his senate confirmation hearings. Instead, they lauded him. He was confirmed by voice vote. No one complained about him last year during the 4 hurricanes in Florida. They lauded him because of FEMAs incredible response.
And as far as FEMA in general is concerned, what about the rank and file workers who “turned back” the Wal-Mart water trucks? Who made that call? Do you think they called Brown, Chertoff and Bush to get approval? No. The rank and file, front-line workers made that stupid decision themselves. So it’s obviously not just a leadership problem. It’s a bunch of ingrained bureaucrats who make stupid decisions. Get rid of civil service protection and fire ‘em all. Good thing Bush forced congress to have DHS exempt from civil servant protections! I wonder if Max Cleland will ask for union job protection from the FEMA workers that get fired because they are doing such a lousy job. I mean, that is the vote that cost him his Senate job.
Oof course it’s Bush’s fault. It’s his fault that he did not keep Randall Robinson’s tribe from eating each other, knowing what he knows about their ancestral dietary habits. It’s his fault for allowing the levees to break since he should have known that there would be a storm surge which information was deliberately kept from local officials because Bush is a racist bigot and wanted the poor blacks in New Orleans to drown. It’s his fault that the levees were not built to withstand force 5 hurricanes in the centuries before Katrina hit … just because. Its his fault that National Guard troops were not already patrolling New Orleans before the hurrican hit because he is the president and he should have forseen the disaster coming - that’s what we pay him for. Its his fault that my left leg hurt this afternoon. In fact, it’s his fault that natural disasters occur anywhere in the world because the President of the US should not allow that to happen. It never happend on Clinton’s watch (now THERE was a President). So there!
But we’d still be witnessing this mess because NO ONE WOULD HAVE LEFT! Good grief, people STILL AREN’T LEAVING! You think a mandatory evacuation would have been effective if only it had been called for earlier? These people won’t leave even when their house is an island in the middle of a toxic cesspool.
For SOME of them — a small percentage — yes, that is true. But many, many lives could (and should) have been saved, if Nagin had ordered the evacuation 24 hours earlier and followed the city’s evacuation plan by using buses to get people out. There are a huge number of people who could not leave, as opposed to would not leave. They didn’t have the money (it was the end of the month, so welfare checks were due in a couple of days and many poor people were short on cash) or anywhere to go, and Nagin didn’t give them the help they needed. Your argument seems to be, “some people wouldn’t have left, so why bother trying?” I don’t think I need to explain how ridiculous that is.
Unless MM is mentally challenged, He is well aware that my reference to Barry Bonds in no way was meant to imply that Mr. Bonds would be shining Mr. Great Grandfather Bush’s boots 100 years ago. I guess I should have used Mark McGuire instead as an example, in which case Mr. Max would have had to dream something else up to gnash his teeth about. I can see now that my prior assessment of MM was wrong, and that his responses on this blog are increasely simpleminded, myopic, and crass.
For someone who has a enormous amount of information at his fingertips and yet can only chant the mantra of “Bush is Bad” does a huge disservice to oneself, and in the end, endures himself to no one who is looking for stimulating debate.
Consider yourself ignored, Max, because frankly, you’re boring.
I keep seeing references to the number of lives lost, but do we really know what the toll is at this point? And if we don’t know the number lost, can we begin to question how many could have been saved? Just asking.
Funny, liberals were demanding that Brown be sent to Asia to assist with the tsunami rescue and relief efforts because he did a good job in Florida in 2004.
Regarding the earthquake, it helped significantly that the army base was in the San Fransisco area. Is there anything in the NOLA area? I think not. If there was an army base near NOLA, and the troops were not evacuated because of the storm, I’m sure they could have been ordered in (that is if Nagin and Blanco gave them the leeway to operate). The San Fransisco earthquake military relief operations were not without controversy, given that the army was carrying out law enforcement operations that it was not supposed to. And the commander of Presidio felt that the local civilian leadership was trying to push the military into a position where they would have to accept responsibility and blame for relief and security operations if problems arise. Sound familiar to anyone?
Gee, Brendan Loy is unhappy with FEMA Director Michael Brown. Oh no! Not … Brendan Loy?!!!?!!!
I’m sure President Bush cares what some college kid thinks.
It is ridiculous how consumed with hubris the geeky blogging community has become.
When the facts come out, and FEMA is largely exonerated in this tragedy, not a single one of you guys will acknowledge the self-absorbed jabronis you are.
Comparing an earthquake to a hurricane is like comparing apples to zebras. You just can’t.
Comparing a disaster response that came from places inside the city and only a couple of miles away,(Miley and Mason were inside the city, McDowell was on Angel Island inside the Bay, and Mare Island was near Vallejo about 20 - 25 miles away) to a disaster response that because of the nature of the hurricane itself had to come from hundreds of miles away is comparing apples to oranges.
Quakes, not including aftershocks, last seconds. The hurricane itself took almost a day to move through the area, then flooding followed the next day. The Coast Guard was airlifting victims on Tuesday, and the Bataan which basically followed the Hurricane in was flying missions by Tuesday evening.
The statement made by the mayor of San Francisco in 1906 as well as the confirmation by the San Diego mayor before the USS Chicago left port leads me to believe that help was requested from state officials to federal officials. I may be wrong.
The infrastructure of SF in 1906 didn’t include overhead freeways, or bridges connecting it to the rest of the bay area. They already depended on boats and ferries for movement out of the city other than for movement down the penninsula.
Trust me, I’m not in anyway trying to minimize the effect of a quake. I was born and raised in San Francisco, I was still there when the Loma Prieta hit in 89 and it was hell. I’m just saying that the two are so very different and the logistics involved in rescue efforts in 1906 and 2005 are so very different that they can not be compared.
“He provoked some of it himself when he conceded that FEMA didn’t know that thousands of evacuees were trapped at New Orleans’ convention center without food or water.”
Maybe it never occurred to him that the city of New Orleans wouldn’t stock a shelter, that it directed people to go to, with at least a minimum amount of food and water? Well, nice guys finish last.
For some reason I can’t seem to care about joining the pile on on this guy. I’ve never been into scapegoating, it’s one of my faults which I have no interest in correcting.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O’BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Carol. I’m Miles O’Brien.
A grim mission in New Orleans. Teams going house-by-house to find the victims of Katrina who couldn’t escape in time. The death toll expected to be in the thousands. How high could it go? Frightening to imagine. We’re live in New Orleans this morning — Soledad.
SOLEDAD O’BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I’m Soledad O’Brien on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. This morning, you’re going to hear my interview with the city’s mayor. He’ll tell us very candidly about his response before Katrina hit. Is he responsible for some of the blame? Also, we’ll hear some details of the conversation that he had with the state’s governor and President Bush on Air Force One. That’s ahead — Miles.
M. O’BRIEN: And President Bush in the disaster zone again Friday and will be back there today. That’s on this AMERICAN MORNING.
S. O’BRIEN: Good morning. And welcome, everybody. We’re coming to you live from New Orleans this morning right near Bourbon Street. And you’re looking at something we really haven’t seen here before lately, and that is the Sheraton. And it’s got power. They’ve got some massive generators working finally, and that means that they also have air-conditioning and lights, clearly you can see. The security there is working around the clock. They’re trying to bring in a limited water supply as well in a city that has none of these things.
Also, we’re told that the Sheraton has and had port-a-potties well before they had port-a-potties at the Superdome.
We also want to show you what they’re working on today. You can see the water level here right by Bourbon Street. The entrance to Bourbon Street is still pretty high. And that means that in the neighborhoods that are even more low-lying, Miles, it’s a massive problem.
They are going to be focusing on search and rescue again today, but really the focus is on recovering the bodies.
We went out yesterday with a search team to try to see who could be rescued. The neighborhoods are so eerily quiet that it’s pretty clear that now we’ve entered another phase. And that phase, of course, is recovery of the bodies. And I have to say it’s going to be a high count, one can tell as you just go through some of these neighborhoods — Miles. M. O’BRIEN: Well, as the mayor said, Soledad, you just have to do the math on that one. Thank you very much. We’ll be back to you shortly.
We begin with some of the mission critical issues facing Katrina survivors as we speak. President Bush making his second visit to the storm-ravaged Gulf region today. He’ll make stops in staging areas in Baton Rouge and Poplarville, Mississippi.
The recovery and count of the dead has begun in New Orleans, as Soledad mentioned. The first confirmed numbers since the storm a week ago now, 59 bodies recovered, including 10 at the Superdome. But city and state officials say the count will ultimately be in the thousands.
Also in New Orleans, reports that police have shot eight people, killing at least five. Authorities say gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors crossing a bridge on their way to make repairs. Police then returned fire.
A plane carrying evacuees from Louisiana arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, overnight. It’s the first group of evacuees to arrive in that state. About a quarter-million displaced people are already housed in Texas shelters, as we have been telling you. But officials say the shelters are overwhelmed there. The governor of Texas is asking other states to take some evacuees as well — Soledad.
S. O’BRIEN: Yes, clearly that is going to be part of this massive problem. The other fork, I think it’s fair to say, Miles, in this problem is the sheer number of bodies, because, frankly, here in New Orleans, they really have no idea. The official number is quite low. What people are actually predicting will be the final number, though, astoundingly high.
Let’s get right to Nic Robertson. He’s been on this story.
No one has any idea, because there are so many people trapped in neighborhoods that no one has been able to access.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And they don’t know until they knock on the doors of the houses, are they find somebody living there? Are they going to find somebody really sort of on their last gasp of breath upstairs? Or are they going to find a body inside a house?
And what we are finding, they are going on and they are finding bodies. And at the moment they can’t do anything with the bodies. They just have to leave them there in the house, mark the house for a team to come back.
Those teams to recover the bodies are coming in now. The disaster mortuary operation response teams, they are coming back, 3 by 31-member teams. They are going to consist of coroners, medical examiners, morticians. They are going to be responsible for finding those bodies, getting information of where they are, finding the bodies, putting them in refrigerated trucks, moving them to a mortuary. At that mortuary there, a sort of formal identification process can be gone through.
And this is also going to be a very big and very slow and very cumbersome process. DNA analysis, dental records, fingerprints if possible. None of this, it seems, is going to happen quickly. And as we both know from watching the operation rescue and relief going on here, it’s a massive area that they have to go through. And it’s clearly going to take a long time. Nobody is out there saying, hey, come to this house, there is somebody here. They just don’t know.
S. O’BRIEN: They have no idea, because they people are displaced everywhere. In addition, I think water is so destructive. As we saw in the tsunami, it really — I mean, it’s grizzly. But it destroys evidence of human bodies, and that’s going to really compromise their ability to identify people. I mean, they had people — floating bodies, floating down the streets, which basically were rivers.
ROBERTSON: And the longer they are left in the water — yesterday, the mayor was talking about his concerns about disease with the bodies being in the water. But the other concern, as you say, is, you know, the longer the bodies are in the water, in these temperatures here, decomposition. And, you know, you lose the fingerprints. So that’s — one of the quick analysis is gone.
Then you’re going to have to perhaps go to dental records or DNA. These things take a lot of time. You’ve got a lot of cross- referencing matching to be done. So, yes, very slow.
S. O’BRIEN: There will be some influx back into the city, because some people will be allowed to come back into their homes. And that’s going to be a whole other huge problem, I think.
ROBERTSON: Jefferson parish today, 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., curfew lifted for families who lived here. They have to have photographic I.D. and show they have residency in the area. They’ve been advised to bring cash, bring food, bring water with them. They won’t find any of that here. But it is a hard curfew. They have to be out by 6:00 p.m.
S. O’BRIEN: I think that’s going to be tough certainly for those families. Nic Robertson, thanks as always.
Let’s get right back to Miles — Miles.
M. O’BRIEN: Thank you, Soledad. Thanks, Nic.
An hour from now, President Bush will leave Washington, head to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He’ll also stop in Mississippi today.
National correspondent Bob Franken at the White House.
Bob, what is the president’s mission today?
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he was stunned by the charges that his administration had at least initially indifferent response to the tragedy that unfolded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. So, he’s making his second trip in three days. The president is going to be showing the presidential flag as he stops in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the capital of the state. He’s going to be meeting with some of the people involved in the massive rescue operation.
Of course, we now know that there’s a blame game going on of sorts, and the administration discussed with officials of Louisiana at least a partial takeover. That was rejected by the state, a federal takeover of some of the state functions.
In any case, after all that, the president will move to Poplarville, Mississippi. He’ll be taking a helicopter flight to Poplarville. There are many people in Mississippi who believe that there just hasn’t been enough attention to their plight. The president will be appearing at Pearl River Community College in that area. We know of 17 who died.
So, the president is now trying to provide reassurances, to provide the symbol of leadership that many people say was lacking at the beginning. He is now trying to, in the words of many administration people, make up for lost time and end the discussions of the past and try and move forward — Miles.
M. O’BRIEN: Bob, let’s talk about this federalization of this whole effort. Clearly, the federal government is the entity that can best afford and handle this kind of a scope of a problem. We know the president asked the governor of Louisiana, apparently has been in some talks with the governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour. Is that going nowhere with both governors?
FRANKEN: Well, there is a lot of dynamic involved here. First of all, the state of Louisiana makes the argument that the local officials, the state officials best know their areas. They should be the ones who maintain the tradition of being in charge.
But there is also the question of who is to blame for what now many people believe was an inadequate response. And federal officials are now saying they were at the mercy of state officials and local officials who didn’t do the job. And the state and local offi
While I don’t hold the president personally to blame for the hurricane, someone should have told him not to make the inanely ridiculous comment “No one expected the levees to break…” on national TV!
I can’t imagine that when he took office, someone didn’t brief him on what the top possible natural disasters in this country were, and the top of that list was (and has been for a long time) a major hurricane hitting New Orleans directly. Come on, people. It’s just not realistic. He’s from Texas, supposedly, right? I’m sure he’s heard of Galveston circa 1900?
WASHINGTON - The government’s disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security workers to support rescuers in the region ó and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.
Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to “convey a positive image” about the government’s response for victims.
Brown’s memo told employees that among their duties, they would be expected to “convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public.”
“FEMA response and recovery operations are a top priority of the department and as we know, one of yours,” Brown wrote Chertoff. He proposed sending 1,000 Homeland Security Department employees within 48 hours and 2,000 within seven days.
Brendan, boy that was easy. When you actually do become a lawyer, don’t let your opponent’s use of code words throw you into a tizzy so bad that you make your opponentÃÂs point. My intentional use of Ross Perot’s infamous “you people” quote at the 1992 NAACP convention when he was running for president appears to still be effective in getting some people off track. I have to say, I hoped for, but didnÃÂt expect that it would be you who would take the bait.
First, don’t put words in my mouth. Don’t say what I *seem* to be saying. Read what I said, in totality and in context. I didn’t say that a mandatory evacuation earlier was bad idea. Did I? I didnÃÂt say that using busses was a bad idea. Did I? If I did, quote it.
What I *did* say is that an earlier evacuation wouldnÃÂt have been nearly as effective as some people, including you, think and that ìweÃÂd still be witnessing this messî. What I *did* say was that a mandatory evacuation solves NOTHING unless people actually follow the instructions and leave. In other words, donÃÂt get caught up in the *timing* of the order. I was responding to many of your commentors to pay more attention to the EFFECTIVENESS of the order.
The ultimate irony is that in your response to my post, you list many reasons why the mandatory evacuation, late as it was, was NOT effective. In other words, you make my point that, no matter how soon the mayor gave the order, there was a significant segment of the population in New Orleans that could not have left 24 hours sooner because of a lack of funds, uncertainty of shelter and fear of the loss of property left behind. Timing and transportation might have mitigated the situation somewhat, but not to the extent that many believe. An 80% evacuation rate, which translates into a 20% stay rate, of a major city is good. ItÃÂs what emergency planners hope for.
Regarding the 20% that stayed, I did not place blame on anyone. I did not say that it was their fault. I simply said “weÃÂd still be witnessing this mess” even if Nagin had called for a mandatory evacuation sooner, and that the fact that many are still staying even in these conditions is one bit of evidence that the mandatory evacuation would not have been nearly as effective as some of your readers believe.
As far as the smarmy comment at the end, the fact that you twisted my post that questioned the additional effectiveness of a 24-hour earlier start on a mandatory evacuation into me saying ìso why bother trying?î Ö thatÃÂs whatÃÂs truly ridiculous.
Actually no. We haven’t seen that yet, because the AP has chosen to selectively highlight on a brief prtion of a sentence that it believe it can use as a club for a partisan attack.
Do we know what else is in the document? Is it a half page? Is it 5 pages? Bullet points? Outline?
What else is in there that the AP doesn’t want to report? Until I see more, I have to regard this simply as another case of an advocacy attack by the MSM. It’s obviously not journalism.
The comparisons to the 1906 SF earthquake are quite intriguing. Clearly we have lost ground in terms of speed and agility in our response. The time will come for a complete post-mortem on this disaster and I believe much of the blame (in addition to failures in leadership during the crisis by Bush, Brown, Chertoff, Nagin, Blanco, etc.) will need to be placed on our legal system (broadly defined, everything from liability concerns, rules/red tape based beauracracy, federal/state/local seperation of powers and heightened concern for civil rights) for causing unacceptable (in an emergency response) delays. It is a flawed system which requires: (1) Mayor Nagin to need to consult attorneys regarding potential liability concerns to hotels/businesses before ordering mandatory evacuations, (2) The Louisiana governor and the White House to be faxing back and forth versions of a memorandum of understanding regarding the command of National Guard troops last Friday (and failing to reach agreement!), (3) Other legal agreements being required/negotiated/signed (re: reimbursement, etc.) before neighboring states would send assistance (I believe Houston was notable in offering the Astrodome unconditionally), and (4) FEMA requiring firefighters from neighboring jurisdictions to undergo training (including sexual harassment training!) before being sent to the scene.
Lawyers will be needed to correct the system. You, Brendan, are in a unique position to make this a focus of your legal career in the near future and I hope you will consider going a different route than the typical litigation/corporate associate and direct your efforts (both through your blog and otherwise) towards these vital issues. Make yourself an expert on these issues and get to work changing the system. Coming from Southern California (and living in Manhattan)myself, I can only hope that the system is improved before the big earthquake (or next big terror attack) arrives.
George, WELL PUT! You forgot to mention two other lawyers, two that Brendan loves to bash. Brown and Chertoff! Have you seen all the delays in getting foreign equipment? There are water purifiers from Sweden waiting to be sent, but are still over in Europe because they don’t have a final destination, so that aren’t being allowed into this country. Some law is preventing them from getting here.
Obviously we need lawyers in this world. But it’s gotten to the point where it has gotten out of hand in an emergency situation.
This is an archived post. Comments are closed.
To leave a comment on a newer post, please visit the homepage.
September 6th, 2005 at 12:48:40 pm
The HORSE! F-ing BRILLIANT!
Ha!
September 6th, 2005 at 12:54:04 pm
Now might be a good time to answer some of Hugh Hewitt’s questions that he posed to you.
http://hughhewitt.com/archives/2005/09/04-week/index.php#a000200
September 6th, 2005 at 1:02:29 pm
Thanks Bruce, I hadn’t seen that link.
But Hewitt’s questions are off-base. I have not suggested that federal government has a “police power,” that it should have ordered the evacuation (I have said repeatedly that Nagin should have ordered it sooner), that he should have called in the national guard sooner, that he should have done X or Y or Z with the police department, etc. etc. I have generally reserved judgment on the various substantive issues that those questions relate to, believing that I don’t have the information yet to answer them. What I criticized Brown for is his own idiotic/untruthful statements. There is nothing in federalism which protects him from accountability for clearly demonstrating that he has no grasp of WTF is going on.
September 6th, 2005 at 1:05:37 pm
P.S. I’ve also posted that I think this may well be a political disaster for Bush, but I explicitly noted that I was discussing public perceptions and reserving judgment on the reality of who is to blame. Saying “X will be a political disaster” is not the same thing as saying “X should be a political disaster,” and I made it clear that I was saying the latter rather than the former.
Perhaps I’m forgetting something I’ve posted, but I will be surprised if you can point me to a statement I’ve made where I said anything that betrays a lack of understanding of the concept of federalism. I have ruthlessly criticized clear incompetence on the part of the part of administration officials, but have not claimed that they should have done such-and-such which they did not have the power to do.
September 6th, 2005 at 1:14:26 pm
It appears that the mayor of New Orleans may have taken too many lessons from Kate Hale.
By the way, reason is hardly a rightwing magazine.
Note the most relevant paragraphs below. More than a couple of parallels.
“It was a truly inspired bit of theater that finally cornered Bush. On August 27, three days after the hurricane, Kate Hale, the head of Dade County’s Emergency Management Office, called a press conference. “I want this live!” she snapped at the waiting television crews as she marched into the briefing room. The TV crews obediently began feeding their signals, and Hale climbed onto a chair and launched a scathing attack on the White House. “Enough is enough!” she shouted. “Quit playing like a bunch of kids!” As the cameras pulled in tight for a close-up, tears conveniently welled in her eyes. “Where in the hell is the cavalry?” she demanded. “For God’s sakes, where are they? We’re going to have more casualties because we’re going to have more people dehydrated. People without water. People without food. Babies without formula….I am not the disaster czar down here. President Bush was down here. I’d like him to follow up on the commitments he made.”
Predictably, Hale’s performance won rave reviews in the Miami news media. The Miami Herald said it was a “movie plea for aid, desperate but determined” and called Hale “a hero to many.” Certainly she was effective: Within an hour, Bush promised to send in the U.S. Army.
But there was much that Hale didn’t mention during her tearful soliloquy. First and foremost was the reason that the U.S. Army wasn’t on the scene: No one in Florida had asked for it. American presidents, with good reason, do not treat local jurisdictions like conquered territories, subject to military occupation at the whim of the White House. Even in civil disturbances, where the military’s primary skill–shooting people–is far more relevant than it is in a natural catastrophe, it’s rare to see federal troops.
Not only had Florida officials not asked for troops, they had specifically said they didn’t want any. The Florida National Guard’s hurricane log shows that on August 25, a Guard officer briefing a U.S. Army counterpart told him: “Florida has not requested any support from other states or federal agencies, nor do we project a need.”"
September 6th, 2005 at 1:17:07 pm
Perhaps, FEMA AND HOMELAND SECURITY WERE NOT, I REPEAT, NOT GETTING THE TRUTH FROM THE LOCAL’S LIKE THE MAYOR AND GOVENOR. OR PERHAPS JUST NOT GETTING ANY INFO FROM THEM. PERHAPS, THAT IS WHY THE PRESIDENT SAID TODAY THAT WE HAVE TO BE ABLE TO WORK WITH THE LOCAL AND STATE OFFICIAL’S IN ORDER TO GET THE WORK DONE. WHO WOULD EVER THINK THAT SUCH FINE PEOPLE LIKE THE MAYOR OR GOVENOR WOULD DO SUCH A THING. ????
September 6th, 2005 at 1:26:10 pm
Intensive Care-
You mean like the Governor of Mississippi and the Mayor of Biloxi? Trent Lott is on TV now begging for help.
Also, the first people on the scene were the Coast Guard and the Army Corp of Engineers. Last time I looked, the Coast Guard reports to the Secretary of Homeland Security. Don’t you think the Secretary would have noted the disconnect between what the Coast Guard was telling him and what local authorities were telling him?
September 6th, 2005 at 1:35:55 pm
As to evacuations and police power. Before hurricane Floyd hit in ‘99 Clinton ordered the evacuation of 3 million people 72 hours prior to the hurricane making landfall in the North East.
September 6th, 2005 at 2:43:09 pm
Quote Hewitt the following from the DHS website:
“Preparing America
In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. The new Department will also prioritize the important issue of citizen preparedness. Educating America’s families on how best to prepare their homes for a disaster and tips for citizens on how to respond in a crisis will be given special attention at DHS.”
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/theme_home2.jsp
They wrote the rules. They should live up to them. DHS has “primary responsibility …” Hewitt should stop passing the buck (and he could lay off the straw men as well).
September 6th, 2005 at 2:47:36 pm
A_B-
According to DHS, the top three things to worry about are a terrorist attack in New York, an earthquake in SF or a hurricane in New Orleans. If this is their priority, I’d hate to see what would happen in Cape Fear or some place like that.
September 6th, 2005 at 2:48:50 pm
There have been previous articles on how DHS’s efforts at promoting disaster kits were spoofed as “duct tape” scaremongering
No one is laughing now, alas
September 6th, 2005 at 2:50:01 pm
The article from Reason Magazine is right on. Remember this article a few months from now when the same thing happens in New Orleans. As for McClellanville, it’s the same type of circumstances that befell the City I work for when we experienced a tornado around 10 years ago. The 3 biggest pain in the asses were -
1- Media looking for a human story and expecting City residents to wring their hands and point fingers of blame.
2 - The ghouls who showed up wanting to look at tornado damage, people in distress, and generally making a total nuisance of themselves.
3- FEMA. I still remember the lady in charge who did nothing but smoke cigerettes and talk on the phone to God knows who. By the time FEMA got around to doing anything, local residents and volunteers from other areas already had things somewhat under control. Say what you will about FEMA, but they will never be as well equipped to respond to a disaster as fast as local & state governments. Unless those goverments are totally imcompetant. And anyone who expects them to is not dealing with reality.
September 6th, 2005 at 2:56:00 pm
Ironman-
That duct tape and plastic sheeting sure would be handy now!
WTF are you getting at?
September 6th, 2005 at 2:56:42 pm
No, dcl, President Clinton did not order any evacuations.
one of many articles about this.
Clinton did, however, cut short a trip to be present to personally supervise the federal response.
September 6th, 2005 at 3:06:35 pm
I understand that Nagin used to be a Cable Company manager or owner. That must be why he was unable to carry out his duty to the citizens of New Orleans.
Has anyone heard about Nagin’s previous resume in the news?
September 6th, 2005 at 3:08:22 pm
the linked article neither proves nor disproves the statement. There was a mass evacuation of the Easter sea board in advance of the Hurricane according to said article. The person or persons responsible for that are not stated.
September 6th, 2005 at 3:10:34 pm
from: “dms”, one the posters on ’stool pigeons message board — mark to market’
–post 298 on 9 5 2005 at 9 52 pm
“Interesting counterpoint to the New Orleans response…
The Great Earthquake of 1906 struck San Francisco at 5:13 AM on April 18.
—First Army troops from Fort Mason reported to Mayor Schmitz at the Hall of Justice around 7 a.m.
—At 8 a.m., the 10th, 29th, 38th, 66th, 67th, 70th and 105th Companies of Coast Artillery, Troops I and K of the 14th Cavalry and the First, Ninth and 24th Batteries of Field Artillery arrived Downtown to take up patrol.
—At 10 a.m. Headquarters and First Battalion 22nd Infantry, were brought from Ft. McDowell by boat.
—At about 10:05 a.m. the DeForest Wireless Telegraph Station at San Diego radioed press reports of the disaster at San Francisco to the ìU.S.S. Chicago.î Admiral Caspar Goodrich immediately ordered fires started under all boilers, and after a confirmation message from the Mayor of San Diego, the ìChicagoî steamed at full speed for San Francisco.
—At 10:30 a.m., the ìU.S.S. Prebleî from Mare Island, under the command of Lt. Frederick Newton Freeman, landed a hospital shore party at the foot of Howard St. to help the wounded and dying.
—Fort Miley troops, the 25th and 64th Companies Coast Artillery, arrived at 11:30 a.m.
—By 11 AM large parts of the city were on fire; troops continued to arrive throughout the day, evacuating people from the areas threatened by fire to emergency shelters and Golden Gate Park.
—St. Mary’s hospital was destroyed by the fire at 1 PM, with no loss of life, the staff and patients having already been evacuated across the bay to Oakland.
—At 8:40 PM General Funston requested emergency housing - tents and shelters - from the War Department in Washington; all of the tents in the U.S. Army were on their way to San Francisco by 4:55 AM the next morning.
—Prisoners were evacuated to Alcatraz, and by April 20 (two days after the earthquake) the USS Chicago had reached San Francisco, where it evacuated 20,000 refugees.
Of course, communications were primitive back then and the nation was not nearly as wealthy and sophisticated as it is today. So it is understandable that the response in 1906 wasn’t nearly what it was in 2005.”
h**p://www.sfmuseum.org/hist10/06timeline.html
September 6th, 2005 at 3:15:42 pm
the three days of supplies people were suppose to store behind the duct tape
It was great fun for Jon Stewart and friends to goof on self-reliance.
Well, party’s over in party town now
September 6th, 2005 at 3:19:48 pm
“the three days of supplies people were suppose to store behind the duct tape”
I don’t think they were making fun of storing food. I think they were making fun of the idiocy of trying to seal your house from a nuke by using duct tape. If you can’t tell the difference, maybe you shouldn’t be staying up past your 9pm bedtime to watch John Stewart.
September 6th, 2005 at 3:21:47 pm
roswell eldridge md-
You can give a chimp a scalpel. It doesn’t make him a brain surgeon.
September 6th, 2005 at 4:32:35 pm
your name should be “snarkier and snarkier”
September 6th, 2005 at 4:36:58 pm
Snarkier and Snarkier, eh?
Irritable or short-tempered; irascible.
That’s about right. Thanks for the suggestion.
September 6th, 2005 at 4:44:22 pm
While they say that Mr. Brown has no disaster experience, I would disagree, he must have it as regards his career…
September 6th, 2005 at 4:55:27 pm
The fact that the response to the earthquake of 1908, an event that:
A) was not forseeable
B) happened in a time when communication was much less advanced
C) happend in a time when transportation was much slower
was quicker than this one is just about the most damning indictment of this administration yet.
September 6th, 2005 at 5:00:36 pm
The comparison of Katrina to the earthquake in San Francisco is fun.
Anybody have time to compare the preparation and response Louisiana and New Orleans officials to the preparation and response of other state and municipal officials to other areas that have been hit by natural disasters.
That would probably be a damning indictment of Louisiana officials.
September 6th, 2005 at 5:47:00 pm
Comparing the San Francisco EQ to New Orleans based on your three points is pretty simplistic.
On the other hand, they are also irrelevant.
September 6th, 2005 at 5:54:46 pm
Care to explain exactly why they are irrelavent? Seems to me we are talking about two comparable natural disasters, both of which required federal response, and comparing the preparedness of both.
September 6th, 2005 at 6:26:31 pm
roswell eldridge md - an interesting comparison, indeed … I wonder how the Federal Army in California, if those particular troops were Fed and not State, got around Posse Comitatus restrictions ?
Could it be that the local State authorities, at State and City levels, had arranged disaster scenarios with the Feds in advance, perhaps ?
And if they were National Guard rather than Fed, then perhaps the local (California) State Governor had his thumb out of his fundament and ordered them in, as would have been both his authority and his duty ?
(It’s just TOO easy!)
David - that certainly was a very quick response to “the earthquake of 1908″ - seemingly arriving 2 full years before the event itself …
And now back to the serious part …
David - in what the good doctor (or good resident of Maryland) commented, none of it referred to the President being involved directly … and all of it referred to the troops being encouraged and invited to help by the responsible local authorities …
Contrast that with New Orleans, where, as I understand it, Governor Blanco and state level officials are on record as having declined offers of assistance from the Feds … “Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state’s emergency operations center said Saturday.
The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. “Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,” said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.
“
Or is that a Rove-inspired urban legend ?
September 6th, 2005 at 6:31:26 pm
Kate Hale is my new hero.
September 6th, 2005 at 6:47:40 pm
Here is another link that some might find interesting.
http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26
The best line is - “Evacuation presents unique and distinct challenges”
Thats quite an understatement.
It’s a pretty generic emergency plan, with vague references to what City officials and Departments were responsible for. Looks like it was written the night before to satisfy some State or Federal requirement.
Dave - In regards to your question, I wouldn’t even begin to make a judgement of comparision between these two events based on your three points. There are two many variables at work, namely, the 100 years that separate the events and the basic difference of how people acted/reacted to disasters at that time.
It’s like wondering if Cy Young could win 511 games today or Barry Bonds could pull balls deep to rightfield in 1910.
September 6th, 2005 at 6:49:35 pm
hmm-
Yeah. Biloxi and Mississippi. They didn’t bus poor people out either. Haley Barbour’s response was just as slow as Blanco’s. Pretty damning stuff.
You dummy.
September 6th, 2005 at 6:50:46 pm
David, check the news. Apparently Nagin was on CNN this morning spilling the goods on how Blanco twiddled her thumbs while Bush personally pushed for giving the feds more power to respond, and she wanted “24 hours” to *think* about it. Bush finally called Saturday night and said Order The Evacuation NOW.
As for after the hurricane, quite obviously FEMA sucked ass. If you want to blame Bush for appointing a nincompoop to head FEMA, go right ahead, but that’s pretty much the extent to which you can blame the Bush administration for this mess. The rest falls on Nagin’s and Blanco’s shoulders.
September 6th, 2005 at 6:52:32 pm
Mad Max, Biloxi and Gulfport weren’t expected to be underwater after the hurricane had moved on. You can’t blame the governor for people wanting to stick it out if it’s just normal hurricane winds, but storm surge and Lake New Orleans? Failing to force earlier evacuations for that scenario is almost criminal.
September 6th, 2005 at 6:53:48 pm
“an interesting comparison, indeed … I wonder how the Federal Army in California, if those particular troops were Fed and not State, got around Posse Comitatus restrictions ?”
The troops were in the U.S. - Not Iraq. Teddy Roosevelt telegraphed the Governor of California and said, “Use what you need.” The Governor did.
This is in stark contrast to the fuckfest that occurred this past week on the Gulf Coast when Bush was, once again, AWOL.
September 6th, 2005 at 6:57:42 pm
“It’s like wondering if Cy Young could win 511 games today or Barry Bonds could pull balls deep to rightfield in 1910.”
Doug-If Barry Bonds was alive 100 years ago, he’d be drivin’ Miss Barbara Bush around in her Tin Lizzy and sayin, “Yes’m.” That’s how the Bushes would like it, anyway.
September 6th, 2005 at 6:59:00 pm
Andrew -
Haley Barbour got the same call on Saturday night. Why aren’t you bitch-slapping him.
September 6th, 2005 at 7:01:33 pm
Andrew - I can absolutely do it. If the Governor of Lousiana was a Republican and the Governor of Mississippi was a Democrat you would be bitching about Mississippi’s criminal negligence and praising the LA governor’s resourcefulness. You RNC tools are all the same. At least I believe there was a screw up at all levels. You guys can’t see passed your rabid loyalty to Bush.
September 6th, 2005 at 8:15:33 pm
Au contraire Max, you can’t see past your rabid hatred for Bush.
The evidence so far indicates Bush pushed for Blanco to order the evacuation earlier than they did, and that he pushed for more federal control in the aftermath. In both cases, Blanco resisted due to presumably partisan politics.
With Barbour, again, Mississippi is not underwater. Barbour ordered mandatory evacuations. The issue is not that some people chose to risk their lives by staying, the issue is a city drowned in a toxic stew. Even if Barbour hadn’t ordered evacuations in Mississippi, what happened there is irrelevant to the subject at hand.
September 6th, 2005 at 8:56:13 pm
Mad Max - quit living down to your last two initials !
The Prez isn’t *allowed* to order the poor bused anywhere … he’s the Executive Branch, not the Legislative ! He has to follow the Law as much as any of us - and probably more, since most of the MSM weenies are microscopically examining everything he says and does so that they can nit-pick some more …
I think we can fairly safely work out that the Prez didn’t order the local school buses to stay locked up somewhere until they were in 4 feet of water, however …
Still, Mad Max may know different, since he apparently had intimate knowledge of Prez Teddy’s phone conversations …
Now, there seems to be a possible disagreement with what MM:BS wrote …
At this site , they quote “San Francisco Mayor Eugene Schmitz quickly issued a bold proclamation to the city: “The Federal Troops, the members of the Regular Police Force and all Special Police Officers have been authorized by me to KILL any and all persons found engaged in Looting or in the Commission of Any Other Crime.” Within two hours of the initial earthquake, Army troops were posted along Market Street, two men to a block, and Presidio troops marched into the city. “ which sounds more like the response of rational local authorities.
Others more expert can correct me on this, but I suspect that the city mayor’s request for help from Federal Troops would satisfy the requirements fo legality with respect to Posse Comitatus, would it not ?
I wonder which authority has more credibility - the NPS ? or Mad Max BS ?
September 6th, 2005 at 9:16:10 pm
Brendan, hi from a member of ND Law Class of ‘94.
Look, I agree with you that Brown said moronic things about the nature of Katrina, and also that he lacks the credentials for the job — Arabian horses and all that.
However. I do NOT blame him for not having known all those people were at the convention center. Chertoff had been conferencing with the Gov and Mayor that day Brown said he lacked this knowledge, and NO ONE local had said a word about anyone being in need of rescue at the convention center. Until CNN reported it late Thurs, who outside of the hell zone did know? Whatever Brown’s faults, I’m not going to blame him for not being able to beam himself to New Orleans to find all locations of those in need at that time. It was *reasonable* of him to rely on locals to tell FEMA where they needed to go.
September 6th, 2005 at 9:36:09 pm
Regarding the mandatory evacuations, they were late coming. But we’d still be witnessing this mess because NO ONE WOULD HAVE LEFT! Good grief, people STILL AREN’T LEAVING! You think a mandatory evacuation would have been effective if only it had been called for earlier? These people won’t leave even when their house is an island in the middle of a toxic cesspool.
I remember hearing when the evacuation was ordered that officials were giddy that they got an 80% evacuation rate! So stop debating the time line of the evacuation. Bottom line is that the number of people who stayed is what planners optimistically hoped for and planned for.
And as far as Brown is concerned, nobody complained about his resume in his senate confirmation hearings. Instead, they lauded him. He was confirmed by voice vote. No one complained about him last year during the 4 hurricanes in Florida. They lauded him because of FEMAs incredible response.
And as far as FEMA in general is concerned, what about the rank and file workers who “turned back” the Wal-Mart water trucks? Who made that call? Do you think they called Brown, Chertoff and Bush to get approval? No. The rank and file, front-line workers made that stupid decision themselves. So it’s obviously not just a leadership problem. It’s a bunch of ingrained bureaucrats who make stupid decisions. Get rid of civil service protection and fire ‘em all. Good thing Bush forced congress to have DHS exempt from civil servant protections! I wonder if Max Cleland will ask for union job protection from the FEMA workers that get fired because they are doing such a lousy job. I mean, that is the vote that cost him his Senate job.
September 6th, 2005 at 9:53:20 pm
Oof course it’s Bush’s fault. It’s his fault that he did not keep Randall Robinson’s tribe from eating each other, knowing what he knows about their ancestral dietary habits. It’s his fault for allowing the levees to break since he should have known that there would be a storm surge which information was deliberately kept from local officials because Bush is a racist bigot and wanted the poor blacks in New Orleans to drown. It’s his fault that the levees were not built to withstand force 5 hurricanes in the centuries before Katrina hit … just because. Its his fault that National Guard troops were not already patrolling New Orleans before the hurrican hit because he is the president and he should have forseen the disaster coming - that’s what we pay him for. Its his fault that my left leg hurt this afternoon. In fact, it’s his fault that natural disasters occur anywhere in the world because the President of the US should not allow that to happen. It never happend on Clinton’s watch (now THERE was a President). So there!
September 6th, 2005 at 10:00:47 pm
But we’d still be witnessing this mess because NO ONE WOULD HAVE LEFT! Good grief, people STILL AREN’T LEAVING! You think a mandatory evacuation would have been effective if only it had been called for earlier? These people won’t leave even when their house is an island in the middle of a toxic cesspool.
For SOME of them — a small percentage — yes, that is true. But many, many lives could (and should) have been saved, if Nagin had ordered the evacuation 24 hours earlier and followed the city’s evacuation plan by using buses to get people out. There are a huge number of people who could not leave, as opposed to would not leave. They didn’t have the money (it was the end of the month, so welfare checks were due in a couple of days and many poor people were short on cash) or anywhere to go, and Nagin didn’t give them the help they needed. Your argument seems to be, “some people wouldn’t have left, so why bother trying?” I don’t think I need to explain how ridiculous that is.
September 6th, 2005 at 10:03:07 pm
Unless MM is mentally challenged, He is well aware that my reference to Barry Bonds in no way was meant to imply that Mr. Bonds would be shining Mr. Great Grandfather Bush’s boots 100 years ago. I guess I should have used Mark McGuire instead as an example, in which case Mr. Max would have had to dream something else up to gnash his teeth about. I can see now that my prior assessment of MM was wrong, and that his responses on this blog are increasely simpleminded, myopic, and crass.
For someone who has a enormous amount of information at his fingertips and yet can only chant the mantra of “Bush is Bad” does a huge disservice to oneself, and in the end, endures himself to no one who is looking for stimulating debate.
Consider yourself ignored, Max, because frankly, you’re boring.
September 6th, 2005 at 10:03:42 pm
I keep seeing references to the number of lives lost, but do we really know what the toll is at this point? And if we don’t know the number lost, can we begin to question how many could have been saved? Just asking.
September 6th, 2005 at 10:20:13 pm
Funny, liberals were demanding that Brown be sent to Asia to assist with the tsunami rescue and relief efforts because he did a good job in Florida in 2004.
Regarding the earthquake, it helped significantly that the army base was in the San Fransisco area. Is there anything in the NOLA area? I think not. If there was an army base near NOLA, and the troops were not evacuated because of the storm, I’m sure they could have been ordered in (that is if Nagin and Blanco gave them the leeway to operate). The San Fransisco earthquake military relief operations were not without controversy, given that the army was carrying out law enforcement operations that it was not supposed to. And the commander of Presidio felt that the local civilian leadership was trying to push the military into a position where they would have to accept responsibility and blame for relief and security operations if problems arise. Sound familiar to anyone?
September 6th, 2005 at 11:04:16 pm
Gee, Brendan Loy is unhappy with FEMA Director Michael Brown. Oh no! Not … Brendan Loy?!!!?!!!
I’m sure President Bush cares what some college kid thinks.
It is ridiculous how consumed with hubris the geeky blogging community has become.
When the facts come out, and FEMA is largely exonerated in this tragedy, not a single one of you guys will acknowledge the self-absorbed jabronis you are.
September 6th, 2005 at 11:31:22 pm
Man I can’t wait til this thing blows over and some of you nut jobs drift away. FEMA will be exonerated? You have got to be kidding me…
September 6th, 2005 at 11:43:51 pm
Comparing an earthquake to a hurricane is like comparing apples to zebras. You just can’t.
Comparing a disaster response that came from places inside the city and only a couple of miles away,(Miley and Mason were inside the city, McDowell was on Angel Island inside the Bay, and Mare Island was near Vallejo about 20 - 25 miles away) to a disaster response that because of the nature of the hurricane itself had to come from hundreds of miles away is comparing apples to oranges.
Quakes, not including aftershocks, last seconds. The hurricane itself took almost a day to move through the area, then flooding followed the next day. The Coast Guard was airlifting victims on Tuesday, and the Bataan which basically followed the Hurricane in was flying missions by Tuesday evening.
The statement made by the mayor of San Francisco in 1906 as well as the confirmation by the San Diego mayor before the USS Chicago left port leads me to believe that help was requested from state officials to federal officials. I may be wrong.
The infrastructure of SF in 1906 didn’t include overhead freeways, or bridges connecting it to the rest of the bay area. They already depended on boats and ferries for movement out of the city other than for movement down the penninsula.
Trust me, I’m not in anyway trying to minimize the effect of a quake. I was born and raised in San Francisco, I was still there when the Loma Prieta hit in 89 and it was hell. I’m just saying that the two are so very different and the logistics involved in rescue efforts in 1906 and 2005 are so very different that they can not be compared.
September 6th, 2005 at 11:44:09 pm
“He provoked some of it himself when he conceded that FEMA didn’t know that thousands of evacuees were trapped at New Orleans’ convention center without food or water.”
Maybe it never occurred to him that the city of New Orleans wouldn’t stock a shelter, that it directed people to go to, with at least a minimum amount of food and water? Well, nice guys finish last.
For some reason I can’t seem to care about joining the pile on on this guy. I’ve never been into scapegoating, it’s one of my faults which I have no interest in correcting.
September 6th, 2005 at 11:47:01 pm
Aired September 5, 2005 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O’BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Carol. I’m Miles O’Brien.
A grim mission in New Orleans. Teams going house-by-house to find the victims of Katrina who couldn’t escape in time. The death toll expected to be in the thousands. How high could it go? Frightening to imagine. We’re live in New Orleans this morning — Soledad.
SOLEDAD O’BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I’m Soledad O’Brien on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. This morning, you’re going to hear my interview with the city’s mayor. He’ll tell us very candidly about his response before Katrina hit. Is he responsible for some of the blame? Also, we’ll hear some details of the conversation that he had with the state’s governor and President Bush on Air Force One. That’s ahead — Miles.
M. O’BRIEN: And President Bush in the disaster zone again Friday and will be back there today. That’s on this AMERICAN MORNING.
S. O’BRIEN: Good morning. And welcome, everybody. We’re coming to you live from New Orleans this morning right near Bourbon Street. And you’re looking at something we really haven’t seen here before lately, and that is the Sheraton. And it’s got power. They’ve got some massive generators working finally, and that means that they also have air-conditioning and lights, clearly you can see. The security there is working around the clock. They’re trying to bring in a limited water supply as well in a city that has none of these things.
Also, we’re told that the Sheraton has and had port-a-potties well before they had port-a-potties at the Superdome.
We also want to show you what they’re working on today. You can see the water level here right by Bourbon Street. The entrance to Bourbon Street is still pretty high. And that means that in the neighborhoods that are even more low-lying, Miles, it’s a massive problem.
They are going to be focusing on search and rescue again today, but really the focus is on recovering the bodies.
We went out yesterday with a search team to try to see who could be rescued. The neighborhoods are so eerily quiet that it’s pretty clear that now we’ve entered another phase. And that phase, of course, is recovery of the bodies. And I have to say it’s going to be a high count, one can tell as you just go through some of these neighborhoods — Miles. M. O’BRIEN: Well, as the mayor said, Soledad, you just have to do the math on that one. Thank you very much. We’ll be back to you shortly.
We begin with some of the mission critical issues facing Katrina survivors as we speak. President Bush making his second visit to the storm-ravaged Gulf region today. He’ll make stops in staging areas in Baton Rouge and Poplarville, Mississippi.
The recovery and count of the dead has begun in New Orleans, as Soledad mentioned. The first confirmed numbers since the storm a week ago now, 59 bodies recovered, including 10 at the Superdome. But city and state officials say the count will ultimately be in the thousands.
Also in New Orleans, reports that police have shot eight people, killing at least five. Authorities say gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors crossing a bridge on their way to make repairs. Police then returned fire.
A plane carrying evacuees from Louisiana arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, overnight. It’s the first group of evacuees to arrive in that state. About a quarter-million displaced people are already housed in Texas shelters, as we have been telling you. But officials say the shelters are overwhelmed there. The governor of Texas is asking other states to take some evacuees as well — Soledad.
S. O’BRIEN: Yes, clearly that is going to be part of this massive problem. The other fork, I think it’s fair to say, Miles, in this problem is the sheer number of bodies, because, frankly, here in New Orleans, they really have no idea. The official number is quite low. What people are actually predicting will be the final number, though, astoundingly high.
Let’s get right to Nic Robertson. He’s been on this story.
No one has any idea, because there are so many people trapped in neighborhoods that no one has been able to access.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And they don’t know until they knock on the doors of the houses, are they find somebody living there? Are they going to find somebody really sort of on their last gasp of breath upstairs? Or are they going to find a body inside a house?
And what we are finding, they are going on and they are finding bodies. And at the moment they can’t do anything with the bodies. They just have to leave them there in the house, mark the house for a team to come back.
Those teams to recover the bodies are coming in now. The disaster mortuary operation response teams, they are coming back, 3 by 31-member teams. They are going to consist of coroners, medical examiners, morticians. They are going to be responsible for finding those bodies, getting information of where they are, finding the bodies, putting them in refrigerated trucks, moving them to a mortuary. At that mortuary there, a sort of formal identification process can be gone through.
And this is also going to be a very big and very slow and very cumbersome process. DNA analysis, dental records, fingerprints if possible. None of this, it seems, is going to happen quickly. And as we both know from watching the operation rescue and relief going on here, it’s a massive area that they have to go through. And it’s clearly going to take a long time. Nobody is out there saying, hey, come to this house, there is somebody here. They just don’t know.
S. O’BRIEN: They have no idea, because they people are displaced everywhere. In addition, I think water is so destructive. As we saw in the tsunami, it really — I mean, it’s grizzly. But it destroys evidence of human bodies, and that’s going to really compromise their ability to identify people. I mean, they had people — floating bodies, floating down the streets, which basically were rivers.
ROBERTSON: And the longer they are left in the water — yesterday, the mayor was talking about his concerns about disease with the bodies being in the water. But the other concern, as you say, is, you know, the longer the bodies are in the water, in these temperatures here, decomposition. And, you know, you lose the fingerprints. So that’s — one of the quick analysis is gone.
Then you’re going to have to perhaps go to dental records or DNA. These things take a lot of time. You’ve got a lot of cross- referencing matching to be done. So, yes, very slow.
S. O’BRIEN: There will be some influx back into the city, because some people will be allowed to come back into their homes. And that’s going to be a whole other huge problem, I think.
ROBERTSON: Jefferson parish today, 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., curfew lifted for families who lived here. They have to have photographic I.D. and show they have residency in the area. They’ve been advised to bring cash, bring food, bring water with them. They won’t find any of that here. But it is a hard curfew. They have to be out by 6:00 p.m.
S. O’BRIEN: I think that’s going to be tough certainly for those families. Nic Robertson, thanks as always.
Let’s get right back to Miles — Miles.
M. O’BRIEN: Thank you, Soledad. Thanks, Nic.
An hour from now, President Bush will leave Washington, head to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He’ll also stop in Mississippi today.
National correspondent Bob Franken at the White House.
Bob, what is the president’s mission today?
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he was stunned by the charges that his administration had at least initially indifferent response to the tragedy that unfolded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. So, he’s making his second trip in three days. The president is going to be showing the presidential flag as he stops in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the capital of the state. He’s going to be meeting with some of the people involved in the massive rescue operation.
Of course, we now know that there’s a blame game going on of sorts, and the administration discussed with officials of Louisiana at least a partial takeover. That was rejected by the state, a federal takeover of some of the state functions.
In any case, after all that, the president will move to Poplarville, Mississippi. He’ll be taking a helicopter flight to Poplarville. There are many people in Mississippi who believe that there just hasn’t been enough attention to their plight. The president will be appearing at Pearl River Community College in that area. We know of 17 who died.
So, the president is now trying to provide reassurances, to provide the symbol of leadership that many people say was lacking at the beginning. He is now trying to, in the words of many administration people, make up for lost time and end the discussions of the past and try and move forward — Miles.
M. O’BRIEN: Bob, let’s talk about this federalization of this whole effort. Clearly, the federal government is the entity that can best afford and handle this kind of a scope of a problem. We know the president asked the governor of Louisiana, apparently has been in some talks with the governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour. Is that going nowhere with both governors?
FRANKEN: Well, there is a lot of dynamic involved here. First of all, the state of Louisiana makes the argument that the local officials, the state officials best know their areas. They should be the ones who maintain the tradition of being in charge.
But there is also the question of who is to blame for what now many people believe was an inadequate response. And federal officials are now saying they were at the mercy of state officials and local officials who didn’t do the job. And the state and local offi
September 6th, 2005 at 11:48:05 pm
And psssst.. the horse in the picture isn’t an Arabian, it’s butt is too dang big, more like a Quarter Horse.
Kate Hale may still be correct..
:::ducking:::
September 6th, 2005 at 11:54:38 pm
While I don’t hold the president personally to blame for the hurricane, someone should have told him not to make the inanely ridiculous comment “No one expected the levees to break…” on national TV!
I can’t imagine that when he took office, someone didn’t brief him on what the top possible natural disasters in this country were, and the top of that list was (and has been for a long time) a major hurricane hitting New Orleans directly. Come on, people. It’s just not realistic. He’s from Texas, supposedly, right? I’m sure he’s heard of Galveston circa 1900?
September 7th, 2005 at 1:18:01 am
Anyone see this yet?
WASHINGTON - The government’s disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security workers to support rescuers in the region ó and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.
Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to “convey a positive image” about the government’s response for victims.
Brown’s memo told employees that among their duties, they would be expected to “convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public.”
“FEMA response and recovery operations are a top priority of the department and as we know, one of yours,” Brown wrote Chertoff. He proposed sending 1,000 Homeland Security Department employees within 48 hours and 2,000 within seven days.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050907/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/katrina_disaster_response
September 7th, 2005 at 10:13:50 am
Brendan, boy that was easy. When you actually do become a lawyer, don’t let your opponent’s use of code words throw you into a tizzy so bad that you make your opponentÃÂs point. My intentional use of Ross Perot’s infamous “you people” quote at the 1992 NAACP convention when he was running for president appears to still be effective in getting some people off track. I have to say, I hoped for, but didnÃÂt expect that it would be you who would take the bait.
First, don’t put words in my mouth. Don’t say what I *seem* to be saying. Read what I said, in totality and in context. I didn’t say that a mandatory evacuation earlier was bad idea. Did I? I didnÃÂt say that using busses was a bad idea. Did I? If I did, quote it.
What I *did* say is that an earlier evacuation wouldnÃÂt have been nearly as effective as some people, including you, think and that ìweÃÂd still be witnessing this messî. What I *did* say was that a mandatory evacuation solves NOTHING unless people actually follow the instructions and leave. In other words, donÃÂt get caught up in the *timing* of the order. I was responding to many of your commentors to pay more attention to the EFFECTIVENESS of the order.
The ultimate irony is that in your response to my post, you list many reasons why the mandatory evacuation, late as it was, was NOT effective. In other words, you make my point that, no matter how soon the mayor gave the order, there was a significant segment of the population in New Orleans that could not have left 24 hours sooner because of a lack of funds, uncertainty of shelter and fear of the loss of property left behind. Timing and transportation might have mitigated the situation somewhat, but not to the extent that many believe. An 80% evacuation rate, which translates into a 20% stay rate, of a major city is good. ItÃÂs what emergency planners hope for.
Regarding the 20% that stayed, I did not place blame on anyone. I did not say that it was their fault. I simply said “weÃÂd still be witnessing this mess” even if Nagin had called for a mandatory evacuation sooner, and that the fact that many are still staying even in these conditions is one bit of evidence that the mandatory evacuation would not have been nearly as effective as some of your readers believe.
As far as the smarmy comment at the end, the fact that you twisted my post that questioned the additional effectiveness of a 24-hour earlier start on a mandatory evacuation into me saying ìso why bother trying?î Ö thatÃÂs whatÃÂs truly ridiculous.
September 7th, 2005 at 10:34:40 am
Edwin,
Actually no. We haven’t seen that yet, because the AP has chosen to selectively highlight on a brief prtion of a sentence that it believe it can use as a club for a partisan attack.
Do we know what else is in the document? Is it a half page? Is it 5 pages? Bullet points? Outline?
What else is in there that the AP doesn’t want to report? Until I see more, I have to regard this simply as another case of an advocacy attack by the MSM. It’s obviously not journalism.
September 7th, 2005 at 2:34:04 pm
Navin’s qualifications prior to being elected Mayor:
-Cox Communications VP/GM
-Past President, Louisiana Cable Television Association
-Past President, Black Men of Metro New Orleans
http://www.broadbandweek.com/news/020204/020206_content_mayor.htm
September 7th, 2005 at 4:39:53 pm
Brendan,
The comparisons to the 1906 SF earthquake are quite intriguing. Clearly we have lost ground in terms of speed and agility in our response. The time will come for a complete post-mortem on this disaster and I believe much of the blame (in addition to failures in leadership during the crisis by Bush, Brown, Chertoff, Nagin, Blanco, etc.) will need to be placed on our legal system (broadly defined, everything from liability concerns, rules/red tape based beauracracy, federal/state/local seperation of powers and heightened concern for civil rights) for causing unacceptable (in an emergency response) delays. It is a flawed system which requires: (1) Mayor Nagin to need to consult attorneys regarding potential liability concerns to hotels/businesses before ordering mandatory evacuations, (2) The Louisiana governor and the White House to be faxing back and forth versions of a memorandum of understanding regarding the command of National Guard troops last Friday (and failing to reach agreement!), (3) Other legal agreements being required/negotiated/signed (re: reimbursement, etc.) before neighboring states would send assistance (I believe Houston was notable in offering the Astrodome unconditionally), and (4) FEMA requiring firefighters from neighboring jurisdictions to undergo training (including sexual harassment training!) before being sent to the scene.
Lawyers will be needed to correct the system. You, Brendan, are in a unique position to make this a focus of your legal career in the near future and I hope you will consider going a different route than the typical litigation/corporate associate and direct your efforts (both through your blog and otherwise) towards these vital issues. Make yourself an expert on these issues and get to work changing the system. Coming from Southern California (and living in Manhattan)myself, I can only hope that the system is improved before the big earthquake (or next big terror attack) arrives.
September 7th, 2005 at 7:46:04 pm
George, WELL PUT! You forgot to mention two other lawyers, two that Brendan loves to bash. Brown and Chertoff! Have you seen all the delays in getting foreign equipment? There are water purifiers from Sweden waiting to be sent, but are still over in Europe because they don’t have a final destination, so that aren’t being allowed into this country. Some law is preventing them from getting here.
Obviously we need lawyers in this world. But it’s gotten to the point where it has gotten out of hand in an emergency situation.