For a little over a week now, I’ve been stressing the need for honest analysis of the emergency management breakdown we witnessed in NOLA, arguing time and again that should we truly wish to address the systemic coordination problems between local, state, and federal governments with respect to emergency response, we need to be able to locate those problems, identify them by name, and correct them.
…All of which seems obvious enough from a theoretical standpoint, but once politics and blame insinuate themselves into the discourse, wagons get circled and facts get framed, party lines get drawn and coalitions get formed—until one day you wake up and find that the head of FEMA has been removed from command during the greatest natural disaster in our lifetime, all because Shepard Smith knew about folks stranded in the New Orleans Convention Center and Michael Brown did not (though in all fairness to Brown, he probably wasn’t watching TV much in those first few days of coordinating the federal relief efforts for three states, and because the Convention Center wasn’t one of the evacuation sites listed in the NOLA plan). But such was the outcry—driven by grandstanding Congressmen and reinforced by a lazy, emotionally-driven know-nothing media already inclined to mistrust the Bush Administration—and Brown, despite what I still believe will prove to be a very strong response by FEMA, was sacrificed to the shrieking hysterics that clamor for the spotlight during times of crisis so as to wring their hands and rend their garments, provided there’s a camera or microphone on hand to perform for.
Be that as it may, however, some in the media, it heartens me to say, are beginning to do their jobs more effectively and dispassionately, particularly now that the drama of the immediate aftermath has subsided a bit. And what they are turning up—by querying those familiar with the kinds of challenges that faced Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama these past two weeks—is quite useful for establishing areas of breakdown and places for improvement. From the Palm Beach Post:
Florida emergency planners criticized and even rebuked their counterparts—or what passes for emergency planners—in those states for their handling of Hurricane Katrina. Gov. Jeb Bush, the head of Florida AHCA and the head of Florida wildlife (which is responsible for all search and rescue) all said they made offers of aid to Mississippi and Louisiana the day before Katrina hit but were rebuffed. After the storm, they said they’ve had to not only help provide people to those states but also have had to develop search and rescue plans for them. “They were completely unprepared—as bad off as we were before Andrew,” one Florida official said.
And how Louisiana and Mississippi officials have handled Hurricane Katrina is a far cry from what emergency managers here would have done. Mississippi was in the middle of rewriting its disaster plan when Katrina struck. Officials there were still analyzing what went wrong during Hurricane Dennis earlier this year when Katrina overtook them. Search teams from Florida were rescuing Mississippi victims before law enforcement officers there were even aware of the magnitude of the disaster.
Louisiana also lacked an adequate plan to evacuate New Orleans, despite years of research that predicted a disaster equal to or worse than Katrina. Even after a disaster test run last year exposed weaknesses in evacuation and recovery, officials failed to come up with solutions.
“They’re where we were in 1992, exactly,” said Col. Julie Jones, director of law enforcement for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, in a reference to Florida’s state of emergency preparedness before Hurricane Andrew devastated southern Miami-Dade County. Since then, Florida has created what many consider a model emergency management system, initially developed by the late Gov. Lawton Chiles in response to Andrew and beefed up considerably by Gov. Jeb Bush in response to more than a dozen storms that have hit the state since he took office in 1998, including a record four hurricanes last year.
The state, under Bush, has learned even from storms that did not hit here. Bush was mortified by the long, stalled lines of cars fleeing from Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and ordered a study of evacuation alternatives that led to the state’s current plan to convert certain highways to northern-only routes.
Meanwhile, Florida’s western neighbors haven’t faced as many storms, and their emergency preparedness apparently has not evolved as Florida’s has.
Local and state officials in Mississippi and Louisiana, as well as federal officials, simply weren’t prepared to deal with a disaster of Katrina’s magnitude, according to observers, citizens and national experts on the scene after Hurricane Katrina wreaked catastrophic damage on the Gulf Coast.
“I’ve heard comments made in other disasters that the first thing they did was throw the plan away because the plan was worthless,” Fugate said. “A plan should not be some requirement. It should truly reflect what your real needs are, and what your real resources are.” Louisiana’s plan doesn’t do either.
A November article published by the Natural Hazards Center, a University of Colorado research institute, analyzed what would have happened if Hurricane Ivan had hit New Orleans last summer instead of Pensacola.
“Hurricane Ivan would have pushed a 17-foot storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain; caused the levees between the lake and the city to overtop and fill the city ‘bowl’ with water from lake levee to river levee, in some places as deep as 20 feet; flooded the north shore suburbs of Lake Pontchartrain with waters pushing as much as seven miles inland; and inundated inhabited areas south of the Mississippi River,” wrote Shirley Laska, a University of New Orleans disaster expert.
But the most recent Louisiana emergency operations plan doesn’t address how to evacuate in the case of flooding from storm surge, saying simply that “The Greater New Orleans Metropolitan Area represents a difficult evacuation problem due to the large population and its unique layout.”
It continues, “The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.”
Buses were unable to transport New Orleans citizens for days following Katrina’s landfall. The plan acknowledges that, in the event of a catastrophic hurricane, “the evacuation of over a million people from the Southeast Region could overwhelm normally available shelter resources.” But it doesn’t include a solution to the shelter issue.
Louisiana officials could not be reached for comment this week. Mississippi and Louisiana officials, however, have increasingly decried what they called a slow federal response to the disaster, blaming the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
But Gov. Bush defended FEMA.
“If we weren’t prepared, and we didn’t do our part, no amount of work by FEMA could overcome the lack of preparation,” he said. Natural Hazards Center director Kathleen Tierney agreed, saying emergency planners in the Gulf states should have taken a tip from the jazz legends that made New Orleans famous.
“Organizational improvisation” is essential to cope with unpredictable events such as Katrina, Tierney said. “Research on jazz musicians shows that people don’t just pull stuff out of the air when they’re improvising. These are people with an extremely wide knowledge of musical genres. They have always practiced and practiced and practiced. Similarly, improvising involves a deep understanding of the resources you have at hand in your community.”
Local officials, she said, “could have listened to researchers. They could take seriously Congressman Patrick Kennedy’s bill called the Ready, Willing and Able Act that calls for more interaction with the community. They could have approached this improvisational task with imagination.” And they might yet, Biloxi spokesman Creel said.
“Believe me, we’re going to be doing a lot of what you call critiquing of this, but we haven’t reached that point yet. We’re still at the midst of it.”
[All emphases mine]
Sure, some people will likely write this off as unreliable due to its odious taint of Bush spawn, but should they do so, they should be prepared to admit to themselves that they’re doing so simply to avoid hearing what they don’t wish to hear—and that Florida’s familiarity with all of the challenges and problems we’ve seen over the last couple weeks in LA and MS makes Governor Bush’s assessment an informed one, and one that is corroborated by experts in hurricane disaster management.
But even as some idealogues resist, others, however slowly and grudgingly, might begin coming around a little—particularly as more and more facts come to light, and more and more rumors are dispelled or properly contextualized. Of course, a press that is more interested in piecing together the events than it is sensationalizing them will also go a long way toward understanding what went right and what went wrong.
In the mean time, though, blogs have been important portals for piecing together information in real time—vetting stories, finding and weeding out apocrypha, etc.—and blog commenters have been indispensable, bringing their various areas of expertise to bear on the unframed information that was being plucked from the white noise. The commenters here, in fact, have done everything from pore through plans and documents (both state and federal) to research various statutes and their applicability to the jurisdictional showdown in LA—all of which has allowed us to keep informed and stay focused.
Speaking of which, I came across this very nicely developed comment over at BuzzMachine earlier that uses a variety of links to summarize the response and reaction up to this point. From EverKarl:
Imho, Katrina has pulled back the curtain on problems at FEMA. Most obviously, the cronyism at the top. Post-9/11, this country cannot afford to have those jobs filled on the basis of patronage. We could do without a bureaucracy that makes firefighters do PR and sit through sexual harassment sensitivity training in the middle of a crisis (I’m guessing the latter wasn’t a Bush initiative, btw). And one of the biggest missteps may be that FEMA didn’t have someone simply monitoring the television coverage, which would have told them that the information they were getting from state and local officials was often incomplete or dead wrong. The LAPD made a similar mistake during the post-Rodney King verdict riots, which led to a slow response to thigs like the Denny beating.
However, some of the accusations made against the feds’ response may not hold up. roger tang will be glad to know from that link that military helos were on the scene doing damage assessments and search & rescue ops on Tuesday. Similarly, Greg Burton will be glad to know that as early as August 27, the President declared a state of emergency in Louisiana two days before the hurricane made landfall, activating efforts by FEMA to position stockpiles of food, water and medical supplies throughout Louisiana and Mississippi more than a day before Katrina made landfall. But it should be obvious that you can’t put supplies or people too close, unless you want to risk having it all lost to the hurricane, too. I’ve seen the feds blamed for keeping the Red Cross out of N.O., also  and it’s now clear that’s not true.
Moreover, complaints about the response time after a hurricane need to consider that the logistics of disaster relief are very unforgiving. And those hard logistic realities explain why the federal plan doesn’t really kick in until 72-96 hours after a storm has passed.
Indeed, even James Lee Witt, who is generally regarded as a very good FEMA director ran into problems when Hurricane Floyd hit, with delayed response times (see here and here for stories that sound familiar today, also).
Conversely, even the Bush cronies did okay with FEMA before Katrina. They were criticized last year for moving too fast after four hurricanes ravaged Florida. FEMA got praise from Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) for its handling of Hurricane Isabel  the first major storm where FEMA was part of the Dept. of Homeland Security.
As for budgeting issues, there’s plenty of blame to go around there also.
So while I’m fairly sure that FEMA is to blame for some of the problems in N.O., I also recognize that most experts put most of the blame on the city and state officials. Funding for the “Hurricane Pam†training exercise was truncated, but the experts’ proposal made after the evacuation for Hurricane Georges to use public transit buses to assist in the evacuation of the poor had already been rejected by the city, included in the state plan, but not executed. And the locals’ use of the Superdome  questioned for years by FEMA  was a disaster because they didn’t do the work necessary to prepare for that use. Compare the state of the Superdome to the way in which the Astrodome was and is prepared.
So far, I’ve yet to hear of FEMA missteps that were as grave as these by the locals. We may yet hear of them. But until then, I’m going with the general consensus of the experts. I don’t think Brown deserves his job, but I don’t want to fool myself into thinking that firing him would necessarily fix whatever problems there are, either. I think we have to guard against the possibility that both political parties will find it in their interests to scapegoat a handful of Bush cronies, rather than take a thorough look at the entire issue of all-hazards response. DHS Sec’y Chertoff has admitted they don’t have their arms fully around it, which is a start.
A very substantive accounting—but one to which even more needs be added should we wish to depoliticize the climate for analysis.
For instance, Walter in Denver points me to this 1995 Washington Monthly story and notes that “James Lee Witt, President Clinton’s FEMA appointee [and the advisor LA Gov Blanco has hired on as part of her CYA campaign] himself a product of political patronage, was head of the Arkansas Office of Emergency Services while Clinton was governor. His previous experience was in the construction business”—suggesting that the sudden worries we’ve heard about Brown’s lack of prior experience (which weren’t at issue when he was confirmed in 43 minutes, let me remind you) are simply another case of politicians grandstanding and the press unwilling to do research when that research might disrupt controversy. An excerpt from the Washington Monthly piece:
Rarely had the failure of the federal government been so apparent and so acute. On August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew leveled a 50-mile swath across southern Florida, leaving nearly 200,000 residents homeless and 1.3 million without electricity. Food, clean water, shelter, and medical assistance were scarce. Yet, for the first three days, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is responsible for coordinating federal disaster relief, was nowhere to be found. And when FEMA did finally arrive, its incompetence further delayed relief efforts. Food and water distribution centers couldn’t meet the overwhelming need; lines literally stretched for miles. Mobile hospitals arrived late. In everything it did, FEMA appeared to live up to the description once given to it by South Carolina Sen. Ernest Hollings: “the sorriest bunch of bureaucratic jackasses I’ve ever known.”
[…]
How FEMA transformed itself from what many considered to be the worst federal agency (no small distinction) to among the best is the most dramatic success story of the federal government in recent years. Not only does it provide further evidence that the government can work, it offers a blueprint for what it takes: strong leadership, energetic oversight, and, most importantly, a total reevaluation of its mission.
[…]
But Clinton and Witt demonstrated an understanding of the virtues of the patronage system. The high number of political appointees allowed the new administration to free itself of the incompetents and replace them with talented new people. Clinton agreed to let Witt interview all potential appointees to ensure that they were qualified for the jobs. As a result, the resumes of the team they assembled are formidable. […]
[my emphases]
Clearly, the griping we’re now hearing from partisan Democrats and “progressives” about Bush’s cronyism is somewhat mitigated, one should hope, by this “revelation” about his successor’s actions, which, as the article points out, were actually useful in improving the agency.
Which means that at one time not too long ago, a whole lot of people who now think differently thought the level of trust between a President and his appointees was important enough to the success of an operation that “cronyism” wasn’t a very pressing issue.
Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with this, from Molten Thought:
1. Things can get destroyed far more swiftly than they can get fixed.
2. The United States military can wipe out the Taliban and the Iraqi Republican Guard far more swiftly than they can bring 3 million Swanson dinners to an underwater city through an area the size of Great Britain which has no power, no working ports or airports, and a devastated and impassable road network.
3. You cannot speed recovery and relief efforts up by prepositioning assets since the assets are endangered by the very storm which destroyed the region.
4. We do not yet have teleporter nor replicator technology like you saw on “Star Trek” in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your worthless communications degree while the grownups actually engaged in the recovery effort today were studying engineering.
5. Getting people out of the stricken areas is the most pressing concern, since we cannot get enough supplies into it to safely sustain them.
6. Getting the airport, bridges, and roads repaired is the next priority, since the supplies and people needed to fix levees, drain the city, and repair the infrastructure cannot be transported via aircraft. You need to truck them in.
7. Once the infrastructure is repaired, it is vital to get the ports in working order. Equipment and supplies can only be moved into the area in large quantities by sea.
8. Only then can recovery efforts begin in earnest.
9. The above will take weeks and months, not days or hours.
10. No amount of yelling, crying, and mustering of moral indignation will change any of the facts above. Facts are facts. Opinion is cheap.
Oh yeah? Tell that to Kenny.
He passed the Bar.
****
update: Want to see how to spin a hurricane into an anti-Bush tale of ineptitude? Try Knight-Ridder on for size…
(h/t Daniel)
The ongoing ‘reality-based’ discussion usually fails to account for reality.
From the National Weather Service –
That was at 8:00AM August 29th with a north-north east travelling big ass hurricane still south east of New Orleans and even further south east of those relief crews and prepositioned supplies.
So, any criticism of the timeliness of relief reaching New Orleans ought to consider that, imo.
A comprehensive and compelling analysis, as always, Jeff.
The unfortunate fact, however, seems to be those who have the most emotional investment in putting the blame on the current Republican administration, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary, will:
a) never read this post, and/or
b) stick their fingers in their ears and hum, “I’m not listening, I’m not listening..”
c) Mutter something about, “I don’t care what your so-called ‘facts’ say, I know what I feel in my HEART!”
And then close with some ad-hominem comment about how of COURSE you’d post such drivel, your clearly a CONSERVATIVE. Ptooie!
Frustrating, and tragic. It’s unfortunate that the general level of discourse in the country has fallen to such a level.
I woke up this morning to the St. Petersburg Times proclaiming that Katrina was the first disaster to hit the US since 9/11 and we haven’t learned anything about how to be prepared. I find that kind of a strange assertion from a paper in a state hit by multiple major hurricanes last year, including one, Charley, that had it hit the Tampa Bay Area as they predicted, would have pretty much wiped our area off the map.
Stranger still is as pointed to in your post, there were actual evacuation plans for each of those events. For Charley there was a mandatory evacuation of low areas in 2 counties, and although that wasn’t perfect (people went to Orlando which turned out to be right in the path once the storm turned) no one was waiting for FEMA to tell us what to do and where to go. Its amazing we actually have shelters planned BEFORE hand here with supplies in place BEFORE the storm and the federal government has nothing to do with that. People volunteer in their communities to run phones and communication centers to help the first responders actually be able to respond, again no federal government needed. The Florida Turnpike even cancels tolls on its roads and reverses the direction of one side so that more people can fit on the road and get out. Didn’t take FEMA to figure that one out.
Hurricanes are terrible, yet lots of us are prepared for them in areas that are susceptible to them, and therefore non-panicked when they do show up. You stock up on water, board up the windows, and if its really bad, get the hell out a few days in advance. FEMA is looked on here as the group that brings in the trailers for the folks that return to no homes, and helps rebuild, not the omnipotent response to planning for disaster.
FYI: Mayor Nagin was on Meet The Press this morning. It’s definitely worth checking out.
He tap danced around some tough questions regarding the local/his response, seemed to defend Bush and then proceeded to throw Gov Blanco under a bus.
I looked for a transcript to link to but it wasn’t posted yet.
I’d just really, REALLY like to go to the alternate universe, the one where these events are happening in parallel, but the one where Gore won. To see how, when FEMA and the federal government made exactly the same response except Gore was there the whole time (I’m sure adding immeasurably to the calm and organization), to see how the MSM and koskoolaid drinkers would be spinning furiously.
It would all have to be Hailey Barbour’s fault, I’m sure. And they’d also gas the FEMA director and identify a couple of mid-level administrators (must find the holdovers from Bush 43) and hang them out to dry.
Because it could not, repeat could not be malfeasance and nonfeasance by Democrats in government (I wanted desperately to add misfeasance in there, but I can’t make the case.)
TW sales – the answer is, What Does George Bush Suck at, Alex.
Yes Patrick, but Al Gore would’ve shown up on the scene Wednesday, in comforting earth-tone clothes, looking very serious and maybe shedding a tear or two for the cameras. Biting of the lip probably would’ve been involved too.
Everyone would’ve felt all warm and fuzzy, maybe cuddling would’ve been involved.
We all would have come together.
B/c Al would’ve been a “uniter not a divider”(TM)!
My prediction: The death toll in NOLA will be less than the combined death tolls in MI & AL. I’m not trying to be cavalier about people dying, I’m just pointing out that the hysterical claims of thousands is just that – hysteria and hype.
tw:body. How the HELL do you do that, Jeff?
Wonder if the press will catch on that their blame bush cheerleading will certainly and utimately solidify there rating in the minds of many as a little better than child molestor and a little worse than banker.
Patrick: I’m REALLY sure Jeff would be writing volumes defending President Gore’s handling of Katrina.
Don’t you get it, Patrick? If Al Gore were president, Katrina wouldn’t even have happened! He’da signed the Kyoto Protocol, and all would be sunshine and roses!
Ultimately, the Supreme Court is to blame here.
BUSH WAS PLAYING THE GUITAR!!!!11!!
/LLL
I think it’s rather sad that people of one political persuasion only read weblogs from their same political persuasion. It results in a stilted political dialogue fed by biased information. I am not a conservative (though I wouldn’t call myself a typical “liberal” either), but I read conservative sites, so I came across this via a conservative site. I would encourage all of you reading this to go to liberal sites and read what they are saying as well.
I think it is quite obvious that state and local officials have a lot to answer for in their lack of emergency preparedness. However, it’s equally clear the federal response was inadequate and unfocused. Those of you who are partisan Republicans may be loathe to recognize this, but the evidence is overwhelming.
Had either the state or the federal response been better organized, things would have gone better. What we had was a simultaneously terrible state response AND a terrible federal response.
Regarding patronage: James Lee Witt was a political crony of Clinton. However, unlike Brown, he was a political crony who actually had extensive experience in emergency management. Similarly, the top FEMA officials under Witt were also experienced emergency managers. The folks at FEMA now have backgrounds that are more in marketing than disaster planning.
Further, as this conservative’s website points out:
http://buddyellis.com/
FEMA has fallen down in recent years in its role helping state and local governments prepare for disaster. Funding was cut, for example, to a FEMA disaster planning exercise precisely at the point where they were supposed to be developing an evacuation plan. Had FEMA been doing its job properly, the local and state officials may well have been better prepared to handle this.
Furthmore, FEMA fell down in its direct job both coordinating and providing relief:
http://suspect-device.blogspot.com/2005/09/hurricane-pam-where-it-all-started-to.html
“There was a certain amount of contention, a few turf wars, some loud talk. None if it consequential, in the end, because of the single greatest emollient: FEMA. The Federal Emergency Management Agency promised the moon and the stars. They promised to have 1,000,000 bottles of water per day coming into affected areas within 48 hours. They promised massive prestaging with water, ice, medical supplies and generators. Anything that was needed, they would have either in place as the storm hit or ready to move in immediately after. All it would take is a phone call from local officials to the state, who would then call FEMA, and it would be done.”
There is plenty of blame to go around here, but to pretend that the Feds did a great job is simply objectively untrue. FEMA has been dismantled during the last several years and it needs to be rebuilt. Even Trent Lott said this about Brown’s reassignment:
“Something needed to be done. While I have been hesitant to publicly criticize Michael Brown, my staff and I had already concluded that FEMA was overwhelmed, undermanned and not capable of doing its job. My office has been successful in working directly with administration officials in Washington, instead of FEMA, to bring relief to Mississippians impacted by Hurricane Katrina. And we have worked with generous corporations, businesses and charities in funneling targeted relief to Mississippians where it is needed. Something needed to happen. Michael Brown has been acting like a private, instead of a general. When you’re in the middle of a disaster, you can’t stop to check the legal niceties or to review FEMA regulations before deciding to help Mississippians knocked flat on their backs. FEMA needs to just say ‘yes’ and get it done. I’m hopeful we’ll see some changes in that direction after today’s announcement.”
The key statement in that lenghty post is that you “believe” the Administration and FEMA responded well. The problem is that the weight of expert opinion as well as public opinion does not see it that way.
I agree completely that we need an “honest” analysis of the complete failure of government in the Gulf disaster. I hope you write Denny Hastert and Bill Frist and share that strong opinion with them. Based on the record of reluctant cooperation on the part of the Administration with the 9/11 Commission, I’m not hopeful about that.
Your sentiment that politics and attaching blame is simply not realistic. Or desirable. This detroys any concept of accountability, which would in turn seriously undermine the concept of representative democracy.
The media is usually dreadful. Anyone who has ever met with reporters knows that most of them are lazy, and quite a few are sloppy. It was the same media when Bush was riding high. What the public is seeing, and because it so big they are seeing it without the mediation of spinners of all presuasions is a massive disaster.
Guys like Bush, who lives by the image, die by the image, too.
It’s more than a little ironic to hear a Senator complaining about legal niceties and regulations impeding efforts because they, more than anyone else, are responsible for the existence of those impediments.
tw: central; as in control, which we can always count on government for more of
Ken, if we haven’t had an “honest analysis” how the fuck can we have “expert opinions”?
Has anyone ever seen Ken and George Galloway together in the same room?
Kevin Drum quoted you without directly linking you, didn’t know if you’d want to respond:
I can spot some, uh, “issues” with his argument, and I don’t know shit.
Mitsu…I read left sights and I read conjecture, like… the army purposely blew up the levees to change the electoral landscape for Bush or outrageous unsubstantiated claims that in just 2 days “blacks” were reduced to eating the corpse’s of “blacks”.
To answer Blanco’s blistering question ‘Do you know anything about buses”, Louisiana (which identified the need for transportation for 100,000 to be evacuated) has 21,000 registered buses. That is 21,000! There were 30,000 initially at the superdome. If only 10,000 were used, and not to full capacity there would be room for roughly 50,000 people to be evacuated in buses on one trip!
The left has had nary a complaint of Blanco, a Governor that did nothing for HER constituents in LA. She stood around referred HER decisions to political consultants who apparently are derelict because nobody told HER what to ask for.
In denying even the existence of a Governor Blanco (and Nagin for that matter) and blaming Bush for burnt toast the left is tan-gently acknowledging Blanco is an unmitigated disaster of a leader they expect nothing of and the smarter Bush Admin. should have known it.
http://www.bts.gov/publications/state_transportation_profiles/louisiana/html/fast_facts.html
“General, that’s not a war plan! All you have is a kind of horrible spasm.”
—Robert McNamara, after hearing about the US plans for nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Yes Mitsu, but the diagreement regards what constitutes immediately after. “
Here I quote from a commentator at van Steenwyk’s who was involved in the relief effort (he’s answering some twit who asked why Duke college kids could get in but the Feds couldn’t):
Now, what do you think constitutes “immediately after”?
Finally! We are beginning to see the truth about what happened percolate to the top. I was just watching Charles Krauthammer on Fox News (even THEY have been on the bash FEMA bandwagon), and the things that we have been talking about here are the exact things that he was discussing. I am hoping that this trend continues, as I have also begun to see these same points moving closer to the top paragraph in the newspapers. I am very disappointed in some of my (used to be) staple blogs, because they have either paid little attention to this outrage (Powerlineblog), or have joined in the bashing (Michelle Malkin). Ms. Malkin’s reaction is especially puzzling, as she usually seems to have her head screwed on right (pun intended). Thanks again, Jeff, for being one of the few bloggers who have kept faith with the common sense side of this story. Just about anywhere else I go, I begin to wonder if someone has given me a lobotomy when I wasn’t paying attention, because it seems to be wall to wall blame Bush and FEMA. Truth be told, I think FEMA is doing a truly amazing job, given the scope of this tragedy, and the incompetence, or even obstructionism) of the local and state governments involved. FEMA IS a bureaucracy, so I am not that stunned that sometimes bureaucratic idiocy rears it’e head. I am positive that if Bush had known about the social “training sessions”, someone would have been walking home with their ass in their hands. My guess is that this little piece of PC bullshit was slipped into some bill in Congress by some of the people who are screaming the loudest about it. You know, no one may attempt to save anyone else until they have had their nose forcibly stuck up Nancy Pelosi’s butt. Brown may not have been the ideal head of FEMA, but I think even HE would have put a stop to the asshats running those “classes, post haste.
Thanks again for providing a place for all of us who still know we live on the Earth, and not in some ridiculous TV show, where everything works out in no more than an hour. You da man…
While FEMA may not have been as effective as it might have been, and I think they’ve been as good as anytime in the last ten years, there can be no argument that the primary failures occurred at the local and state level and they bear the brunt of the responsibility.
The point that Jeff and others have so ably illustrated was that from the outset, most of the mainstream media and the democrats, played politics while New Orleans flooded.
There will be plenty of time to analyze who did what. But there is no disputation about the fact that the media was ignorant of fundamental governmental functions and chains of command and responsibility, they focused on sensationalism and emotional coverage, they parroted wild and unfounded accusations and all aimed at this administration, from the outset.
Neither can there be any disputation that the democrats and most of the left began blaming the Bush administration before the storm had even subsided. Again outrageous and unfounded accusations and damned lies flew through the airwaves and the left side of the blogosphere as fast as the winds of Katrina. It was the most disgusting display of heartless exploitation I’ve seen in this country for in a long time. The left, the democrats and their handmaidens in the MSM should be ashamed, that is if they had any shame.
So Jeff and many others went to great lengths to point out the truth, which I for one am very glad they did and are, only to have Ken and others of his ilk accuse them all of being partsan and defending Bush at any cost. Talk about rhetorical ju-jitsu!
Ken you were correct in saying,
I’ll add not too bright to that also, but then you go on to say,
. This is just cheap rhetorical slight of hand, because as I’m sure everyone who isn’t braindead has seen these last five years, the media has never been for Bush. Whenever Bush has been ‘riding high’ as you say, it was despite the media and any praise that Bush has ever gotten from the MSM has been faint and grudging.
So now that it can’t be pinned on global warming or failing to sign Kyoto, now that it’s evident that the only race baitors were on the left, now that it’s becomming evident that most of any blame to be laid will go to the state and local governments, which happen to be democrat, the left once again picks up the goal posts and begins sprinting downfield.
Well, I don’t think this big ChimybushitlerMchalliburton hate fest is fooling the public one bit. Yeah, some poles have come out where democrats and blacks were over sampled in order to make Bush look bad, but the one real poll I saw was that fuckheaded rapper who claimed Bush didn’t care about blacks, whateverhisnamewas, get booed loudly and soundly and for the duration of his ‘song’ at a football game the other day.
Yeah Ken, you Waytard and the rest of your ilk can crow all you want, just remember Paul Wellstone’s funeral and think ‘times ten.’ The rest of us will do what we can to help with aid and rebuilding and go on with our lives.
Oh yeah, one last thought, why during all this caturwauling, wailing and gnashing of teeth by the left, did we not hear one thing constructive or helpful thing? You’d think if it was all so FUBARed, you folks might have had some suggestions on how to do it better. Oops, I forgot, you did, Sean Penn was there with his personal photographer.
Boy, I’m sure tired of hearing this bullshit, related as if it is fact. DETAILS OF FAILURES. LINKS. CITES. NOT YOUR, OR OTHER TALKING HEADS OPINIONS!!!
What “experts” Ken? And public opinion. Get a grip. Public opinion, right now, is what the misanthrops called the MSM relates. As more misinformation is refutted, public opinion will change. Expert opinions and public opinion, as much as you wish it so, are not facts.
Syntheticzero?
Genuinezero is a better fit.
Being from the region that took the brunt of the storm, I just want to add my two cents here:
In Mississippi, there may well have been three factors in our favor that worked to minimize loss of life – (1)the powerful, lingering memory of Camille and what happened to those foolish enough to try to ride it out. (2)the fact that the area of the MS Gulf Coast affected did not have the same urban congestion as New Orleans. (3)different socio-economic composition, offering greater ease of access to transportation and resources for waiting out the storm at a remove.
And, finally a governor who (unusual in the South, where the “weak governor” model is the norm) actually showed some initiative and leadership from the onset.
…and problems we’ve seen over the last couple weeks in LA and MI…
Actually, I think Michigan came through the storm relatively unscathed.
Yeah, well, that’s what I get for posting at 3:30 in the morning, I guess.
One of the latest jokes from New Orleans (my brother lives in Metairie; my uncle works for Metairie PD; another uncle lives in NO and is sharing a hotel room with 18 people (ugh)).
“If there had been an election, you can be dammed sure Landrieu and the Democrats would have found enough buses to move those folks.
Just needed to have the voting booths in Baton Rouge or Shreveport.”
SMG
Well, Michigan did have to watch Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick declare her shame in America, then laud her son Kwame, (aka worst mayor in America) as a Katrina-victim’s hero. So while that is no hurricane for MI to recover from, it is certainly a swirling windstorm of humiliation.
MayBee,
What’d Kwame do for the Katrina victims? Put them up in suites in Vegas on his city credit card?
Yes, Mike C! He also promised them jobs as security at his next Manoogian Mansion party and bought them Lincoln Navigators.
And I join Ms. Cheeks Kilpatrick. I am shamed that the rest of America lacks such vision and creative problem-solving skills.
That’s why Detroit is such a vibrant and growing city!
tw: there; glad I’m not, but Go Tigers.