Several interesting points / arguments made in the comments to the previous post outlining Blanco’s series of indecisions after Nagin’s initial failures with regard to positioning buses and supplies.
With regard to the Stafford Act and my earlier contention that jurisdictional takeover requires active assent from the NO government, Dorkafork notes that the Act “is mainly about financial assistance and coordination of aid agencies. The references to jurisdiction I see in there refer to state and local authorities keeping their authority through a state of emergency.
“I believe the relevent part of the statute is Sec. 403(c):
During the immediate aftermath of an incident which may ultimately qualify for assistance under this title or title V of this Act [42 U.S.C. §§ 5170 et seq. or 5191 et seq.], the Governor of the State in which such incident occurred may request the President to direct the Secretary of Defense to utilize the resources of the Department of Defense for the purpose of performing on public and private lands any emergency work which is made necessary by such incident and which is essential for the preservation of life and property.
“IANAL, but it looks like the Governor specifically has to request troops. It does not look like the President can send them in on his own authority just because a state of emergency has been declared.”
Further: “And I’m not convinced that state or local authorites are under any legal obligation to defer to the feds. I haven’t found the relevant part of the statute yet (because IANAL), but look at Sec. 306:”
a. Utilization of services or facilities of State and local governments
“In carrying out the purposes of this Act, any Federal agency is authorized to accept and utilize the services or facilities of any State or local government, or of any agency, office, or employee thereof, with the consent of such government.
“All the language in the Act makes the feds sound as if they defer to the local authorities. And all of this is after a state of emergency is declared.”
Attorney D.J. Quigley then provides the legal gloss:
Here’s the quick legal skinny: There’s a difference between money and boots on the ground; the governor (surprise!) immediately asked for the former.
Undert the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C. § 1385), the president can’t use armed forces (including national guard in federal service) for law enforcement absent congressional directive. (Some courts, however, have held that this does not apply to the Navy (U.S. v. Yunis, 924 F.2d 1086 (C.A.D.C. 1991)) and the Coast Guard (U.S. v. Chaparro-Almeida, 679 F.2d 423 (5th Cir. 1982)), both of which seem to be more useful here, since it looks like that nobody without boats can provide any serious logistical or enforcement functions in NO.)
But upon request of the governor, or perhaps on his own initiative, the president can use the federal military by invoking the Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C. §§ 331-34). What’s happening in NO might be called “insurrection†or “rebellion,†but that’s a politically-dangerous stretch.
All of this seems to suggest that under Stafford, the President had to wait for Governor Blanco to request a Federal takeover, which the Post article notes she did not do:
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.
But beyond the military response aspect, what about FEMA?
RLS points to this Wikipedia entry providing a timeline of FEMA’s actions, and excerpts the operable passage:
The entire region was declared a disaster area before Katrina even hit land and FEMA prepositioned 18 disaster medical teams, medical supplies and equipment, urban search and rescue teams along with millions of meals ready to eat, liters of water, tarpaulins, and truckloads of ice.
FEMA’s role, as I understand it, is to coordinate with the local government and to augment the already established local plan. Reacting to this set of conditions (if I’m presenting them accurately), TomK writes:
we’ve all seen the infamous flooded bus pics, and we’ve all seen the official Plan for this event which mentions the use of those busses. Given those facts and this new letter to Bush, I have no choice but to conclude that the LA government has failed completely.
1) The letter to Bush claims that the Plan is being put into effect, so the governor obviously knew about the Plan.
2) The FEMA people, who presumably have a copy of the LA government Plan, expect the Plan to be followed and start getting follow-on plans in place.
3) The Plan, as we now know, envisions the busses being used to evacuate the city.
4) The busses were not used at all, except by one enterprising young man who stole one to rescue 100 people.
5) FEMA’s follow-on plan is shot to hell because the original Plan was not followed. And the LA government won’t get the fuck out of the way and let the Feds fix the LA gov fuckup.
Couple this with Robin Roberts’ reminder that “Federal planning guidelines instruct the state and local governments to expect Federal aid to take 3 to 4 days to arrive and be prepared to handled the situation for that long”—consistent with the actual arrival of federal aid after the Tuesday levee breaks, and despite enormous logistical obstacles (the absence of infrastructure, flooded roads, and no centralized communication—which NO accepted monies to assure wouldn’t happen)—it seems to me that the FEMA response was appropriate.
Norbizness, however, introduces a new wrinkle:
“The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act.” (White House release, 8/27/05)
“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.” (Homeland Security Homepage)
And there’s also this: “New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state’s National Guard last Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn’t come from Washington until late Thursday.” I don’t know what that paperwork is, and why it would have to come from Washington. Therefore, I cannot anecdotally piece together the question of jurisdiction.
Again, if I’m reading this correctly, under Homeland Security, FEMA has the authority to “coordinate relief efforts”—presumably with the local government—and to answer requests made by the Governor under Stafford.
But the operable section to which Norbizness wishes to draw are attention, I’m guessing, is this one:
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.
Again, I’m not an expert on bureaucratese, but the mandate here seems to be DHS assumes primary responsibility for “preparing” emergency reponse professionals, and coordinating a federal response to augment the local response.
Again, I don’t think that while the NO government is still operational, DHS has the authority to send in troops or do more than coordinate with local government until such time as that government requests a turnover of control.
Which brings us up to date, I think.
What am I getting wrong here? Thoughts?
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see also, Blanco’s Aug 28 memo (h/t Gail)
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update: Glenn has a round-up of thoughts. Brendan Loy, for instance, focuses his displeasure on FEMA director Michael Brown.
But in reaction.
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update 2: Rick Moran has put together a comprehensive timeline of events, which he notes is fluid and open to corrections / additions. Like me, he’s posted the timeline not to assign blame but rather to cull facts from the media / punditry noise (h/t brass).
Meanwhile, Joe Gandelman puts together a post on blogger reaction to Katrina that might catch you up on what others have been saying.
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update 3: From Random 10:
Checking the US Army Corp of Engineers website, they updated their information on or around Friday August 26, 2005 with specifics about positioning supplies in anticipation of Katrina hitting the coast. It is also important to note that the Corp of Engineers began making contacts required for “un-watering†New Orleans. Clearly this agency of the Federal Government was aware and preparing 3 to 4 days in advance for potential flooding.
Clearly, the feds were preparing in advance. The scope and breadth of the devastation created logistical difficulties that it took some time to overcome, but I would hardly chalk those up to incompetence or, as some have perniciously suggested, racial animus.
Jeff, it all follows from out Constitutional structure. The Federal government cannot compel the state or local government to act.
The whole argument is moot. Water under the bridge (or over the levee, as the case may be.)
Leave it for later.
Chertoff seemed to affirm all this today when he said that the locals are the first responders and must first authorize the feds to come in. Sure, so he would say that. But there is no one on the opposite side saying anything different. Nagin and Blanco have not been on any Sunday shows, to my knowledge, to dispute that. He also said that configuration may need to be rethought in the future in huge losses like this one.
The military also has been insistently saying they are only helping the local authorities and are not in charge. IOW martial law does NOT describe what is happening with the active duty military.
And OT the US HAS accepted help from other countries, just haven’t had time for press releases I guess. Here’s at least one: http://www.zachtei.nl
Unfortunately, leaving it for later would be a disaster. By then, the narrative will have ossified.
Again, I’m not interested in politicizing this; I’m interested in preventing those who’ve been trying to politicize this from succeeding in doing so.
I don’t think the Governor would necessarily have to ask for a Federal takeover in order to get DoD personnel. Probably, but not necessarily. (Probably, because the armed forces would probably remain under the command of the CiC, therefore remain in federal control.)
You can also read FEMA’s page on the Disaster Process:
That’s the very first sentence on the page. Also:
I would assume the New Mexico Guard business would have to be routed through the Feds due to federalism concerns since it’s interstate. As to why it wasn’t approved til Thursday, I have no idea. I don’t think it changes the jurisdiction question, it would just be a black mark on the feds’ performance.
I didn’t want to politicize this at all. Nagin, Blanco and Landrieu started it.
I even saw Landrieu on Stephanopoulis’ Sunday Morning show flying over the 17th Street levee breach ridiculing the Army Corps of Engineers attempt to build a causeway to start repairing the breach. Ignorant bitch.
Robin –
What do you make of the language in the Norbizness link about Homeland Security’s authority in the event of such a catastrophe. Am I correct to note that so long as the local government is still operable, they are hamstrung and can act only in a supporting role? What about the language “primary responsibility”?
Same question for you, Dork.
Great work, Jeff. You should write a book. Start now, while the research is “hot” and you have half the blogosphere doing your dogwork for you, and you’ll be ready to print when the MSM starts to attempt their “compilation of lies” retrospectives.
I think it’s just boilerplate for the DHS home page and not legally binding. I don’t think they’re quoting a statute. (I wouldn’t expect to see the words “swift” and “effective” in that case.) In any case, “providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response” doesn’t have to be read to mean the feds have jurisdiction.
So I finally got here but like where are all the people. Effn government.
TW “wrote”… thats all she did
The DHS website on Declared Disasters & Assistance actually points to the FEMA Disaster process page listed earlier and the Stafford Act, so I don’t think the legislation creating the DHS made any changes to how jurisdiction is handled.
That sounds about like I thought, thanks.
The reason I want to make certain is this indexical reference to the HS page seems to be shaping up as the next meme from detractors of the federal response.
On another note, Brendan Loy has lost his shit. See my update for more.
Jeff, the DHS website is just PR flak talk mostly – boasting of their role as the principle with respect to the federal government since the Dept of Homeland Security creation act moved FEMA and the Office of Domestic Preparedness under DHS.
With respect to Brendan Loy, I think he’s taking a rather meaningless “Gee, I didn’t think it would do that…” comment as some huge indictment of incompetence.
That is over the top for Loy and he should know better. What else was the head of FEMA supposed to say? “Everyone knew that New Orleans was doomed.”
I don’t think that is what people say in press conferences.
Jeff,
I think that the operable part of all of this is the LANG. The Governor is the sole authority. She is the only one that is able to call in the NG. FEMA, by nature, is not a military operation, they are a humanitarion support operation. The have no troops to enforce the rule of law, therefore they could not send in all of the aid they had waiting. The worst thing they could do would be to get relief workers killed by shooters or mobs overwhelming them.
I think the most telling time line is going to be
1. When did Blanco call up the NG?
2. How many troops did she call up?
3. What was the makeup of the troops (how many MP’s for example)?
4. When did she request additional Guard from the other states?
I think that these are crucial questions that need to be answered. Nothing could be done in NOLA without security being present. You can have all of the critical medical personnel and water and food in the world, but if you cannot get them delivered they might as well be in Moosejaw, Sask.
Somewhere I read that the Mich NG had 500 MP’s ready to go last Saturday but did not get a request from the LA Gov until Thursday.
Landrieu. Someone needs to approach Ms. Landrieu and ask the following:
Will the Mayor of New Orleans, the Governor of LA and the Lt. Governor be charged for the criminal negligence for the lack of pre-hurricane evacuation? Or will someone in the federal government cover-up for them?
Hint to response. Duck. Ms. Landrieu’s brother Mitch is Lt. Governor of LA.
TW: approach.
All the Governor had to do was issue her authorization to allow Federal control. I take DHS statute ‘Governor requests’ to mean issuing authorizition for the Federal government to assume control. I have not read anywhere that DHS has the legal right to supercede, without authorization, the Governor’s power in the event of a disaster. Only states that the DHS must response the Governor’s request for assistance.
Look, if the Feds had gone into NO’s without authoriztion from the Governor then the Governor and her Democrat entourage would be declaring Bush a Dictator for having superseded her power instead of what they are doing at the moment, which is…. blaming Bush for not being a Dictator.
Landrieu is already demonstrating her childishness on national TV – claiming she’d beat up Bush if he blamed New Orleans for their collapse.
Meanwhile, NYT reports that hundreds of New Orleans PD have deserted. I lived in the jurisdiction of some pretty bad police departments but that is behavior I’d expect from no other police department.
protein wisdom–doing the work the Washington Post doesn’t have the resources to do!
The Post is putting a lot of good information in their reports, amy. They are just burying it at the end of articles after a ton of nonsense.
mudville gazette, has some coverage of the NG response. one thing that struck me was this bit:
some troops were there Wednesday night?
Well, this is dated the 29th:
Maggie, actually there were NG troops there on Sunday — they were the ones who opened the Superdome — and as I recall them saying on TV, they had about 350,000 MREs with them.
Which is to say about one day’s supply, given the 100,000 people they now say were in the various shelters (not just the Superdome, there were a total of 20 last-resort shelters in NO).
This Times-Picayune article mentions 150 NG at the Superdome :
“About 150 National Guard soldiers, New Orleans police and civil sheriff’s deputies were patrolling the facility. Some weapons were confiscated.”
You can’t make this stuff up.
TW: Planning.
I was going to post another comment about the poor planning and execution by the locals in NOLA, but Jeff has automated his brilliance as to make our work redudant.
TW: reached
The mayor of NOLA reached into the federal cookie jar, but forgot that the money was supposed to pay for the petro for his city’s busses which would have gotten the masses out of path of Katrina before there was a crisis. Then the 350,000 MRE’s could have been conserved for those too infirmed to survive the trip.
This is what planning is. This is what execution is. This is why it is called the executive branch. This is why people crave leadership. This is why you had 7,700 city employees. This is why I am being driven insane.
ahem,
Here’s the money quote from that site:
[emphases mine]
If there were 150 NG at the superdome and 3,000 NG had been called up, where were the rest of them?
tw: range, that’s a hell of a range 150 to 3,000
<a href=”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167466,00.html“>This</a> artlcle from Fox News on Monday, the 29th:
“As the Category 4 the storm surged ashore just east of New Orleans on Monday, FEMA had medical teams, rescue squads and groups prepared to supply food and water poised in a semicircle around the city, said agency Director Michael Brown.” (Interviewed in Baton Rouge.)
So I’m wondering why weren’t they sent in?
Also:
“The American Red Cross said it had about 200,000 volunteers mobilized for the hurricane, the “largest single mobilization that we’ve done for any single natural disaster,” said spokesman Bradley Hague. The organization set up operational headquarters in Baton Rouge.”
Where?
Also on Monday the 29th.
“About 3,600 members of the Louisiana National Guard were assisting state police with the evacuation of New Orleans and helped establish 122 shelters across the state.”
On the 31st, this article mentions that:
‘Because Bush declared the states disaster areas before the storm hit on Monday, many relief teams and resources were pre-positioned for rapid deployment throughout the region. But so many roads are washed out, moving resources is proving impossible in many areas.’
And:
‘FEMA has 23 disaster teams in the region. Hundreds of additional search and rescue teams have been deployed from other agencies around the nation. FEMA has ordered in medical specialists from Washington state, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Ohio, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Florida.’
Ahem, I’ve read in the last couple hours a report by someone who was driving a medium truck in that it took something like 10 hours to go 80 miles toward N.O., because of downed trees, flooding, etc.
As it says on the guard word: “figure”. As in “go figure”.
I found this timeline of events over at Right Wing Nut House. It may shed some light on some of the questions asked <a href=”
http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2005/09/04/katrina-response-timeline/“>here.</a>
I just don’t get it.
I live in earthquake country where we don’t GET even 24 hour warnings.
City/county/state government makes it quite clear… in the event of The Big One, we had better damn will be personally prepared because we will be on our own for at least 3 to 5 days.
WTF with an area that gets hurricanes on a yearly basis?
It seems one of two possibilities exist: 1) The reports of rescue crews and supplies pre-positioned in Baton Rouge are inaccurate, or 2) the rescue teams and supplies were in position but couldn’t move in for reasons either physical or administrative.
Let’s not overlook the fact we apparently had well over 100,000 people completely incapable of making the simplest preperations or taking care of themselves. This scares me as bad as any incompetence on the part of the government. How much smoother would the rescue ops have gone if the people had just prepared for three days on their own. I refuse to believe that many people didn’t have three damn dollars for a gallon of water and some crackers.
I’d like to second Darleen’s point – for future reference only (not pointing fingers here). I lived in New Orleans during Camille and Betsy, Houston during Alicia, and Los Angeles during the Northridge Earthquake. Our stock piles of canned goods, water, etc. were essential during Camille, Betsy and Alicia – primarily because of the lack of power for several days. Fortunately our house didn’t flood during Betsy and Camille (we were, however, able to canoe down the streets), but we were prepared to feed and water ourselves for at least a week.
Hmmm, if you live near, you might think about moving.
”…if you live near me…”
thanks guys, i kept getting the impression from the news that there weren’t any NG people there. i didn’t think that was the case, but hadn’t found otherwise, until today.
as far as help arriving in NO, my understanding of it has been that there were/are very few safe routes in or out of the place. you can only retrieve so many people, deliver so many supplie at a time by helicopter or boat.
Me, I went through Alicia as well. The eye went right over my house in SE Houston.
Scariest thing I’ve ever been in. For those who haven’t been through them, imagine sitting in the dark with just some candles a radio on (running out of batteries) and listening to a high-pitched wind going on for 5 hours and hearing material flying over head and crashing into your house and neighbor’s houses.
We went outside with the eye went over. It’s as about a surreal experience as you can get.
We had no power for 3 days, in the middle of a typical Houston August. Yuck.
TW: Enough, as in going through one of those was enough for me.
Darleen, I’m pretty certain (although I can’t provide a quick link, I’m getting away from the keyboard dammit!) that the actual evacuation order said to bring food and water for 3-5 days. …
Oh, okay, it was too easy, I couldn’t resist: From the nola.com report of the news conference:
“Nagin said the city would open the Superdome as a shelter of last resort for evacuees with special needs. He advised anyone planning to stay there to bring there own food, drinks and other comforts such as folding chairs, as if planning to go camping.
“‘No weapons, no large items, and bring small quanties of food for three or four days, to be safe,’ he said.”
yeah, charlie, i even remember the coverage of people lined up to get in the superdome and reporters noting that most of them had not brought food or water as instructed. they figured they’d be provided for.
tw: chance. I wouldn’t take that chance.
Ahem, more likely those teams did move into the area and were literally swallowed up by the work of aiding hundreds of thousands of people.
They are probably working very hard right now and have been for the week – just not within range of Shepard Smith’s camera.
People have some amazingly ignorant idea of just how much logistics are involved in feeding the huge area that was hit and how long it takes to rebuild that logistical chain before anything like the necessary supplies pour in. Look at Charlie’s comment about having 300,000 meals in hand and how just the people around the Superdome alone swallowing those supplies in a day.
Get a freakin’ clue people.
Here’s a jackpot page – a blog written by the T-P noting events as they happened.
Start reading from the bottom.
Well, the citizens were incompetent life managers, but that was not news to the mayor. If you’re a leader, you have to prepare for that also.
I’m in earthquake country, too, and for the first time in my life I packed a kit… yesterday. I was a fool. I’ve learned my lesson, as have all my relatives. I will include Mace, perhaps a gun. It’s one thing to die in the Big One, but I refuse to die because of dehydration of because some thug wants my car.
Here’s a quick question: was the Stafford Act passed as a result of any problems with aid/relief planning that happened with Hurricane Andrew the year before?
Also, was there any state-federal procedural difference between what occurred with this hurricane and what happened with Charlie/Frances/Ivan last year in Florida?
Robin, my questions were strictly rhetorical. I know those guys were working their asses off. I know the destruction of the infrastructure stopped things cold. I’m just trying to keep it honest.
Incidentally, this is an interesting page to show people if they talk trash about the recent reduction in funds for the levee system. A report written in 2002 by the T-P explaining the new levee—due to be put in action in 15 years!
Let the Left scream their tonsils raw; the Bush administration did not materially cause this, and actually saved lives. That’s not to say that inefficiencies, stupidities and breakdowns won’t be discovered.
At the end of the day, when the smoke clears, we’re going to discover that the more avoidable elements of this disaster were the result of an accretion of small, wrong decisions made over a period of many years. Like the sinking of the Titanic.
People are ridiculing Chertoff and the FEMA head for the comment about being surprised at the levee failure but I think the log that Ahem linked to explains why.
If you look at the timing, given the limited reports that were getting through; at around noon or 1 pm on Monday it looked as though New Orleans was going to be badly damaged but manageable.
I don’t think that the comments about being surprised meant that Chertoff and others were unaware of the possibility of a levee failure. I think it means that the belated failure had given them a brief hour or two when they thought things were under control after the hurricane. You can see similar attitudes in the comments of Landrieu and others around midday Monday.
It is really a shame that people are taking such comments out of context and blowing them up into a mountain of nonsense.
Here’s another juicy, fact-filled page from 2002:
Quote:
Ahem, I thought that was your intended tone and didn’t mean anything specific to you in the later paragraphs of my reply.
Good on you Patricia. That was the intent of my comment – to hopefully convince people through anecdote that it is a good idea to prepare. Not that it isn’t self evident after this past week.
Norbizness —
Don’t know about the first part; as to the second part, I can only speculate that the remaining infrastructure in Florida was sufficient enough to prevent inordinate delays of local relief (before federal relief arrived).
Anybody else know if Stafford was a response to Andrew?
I’m not interested in politicizing this; I’m interested in preventing those who’ve been trying to politicize this from succeeding in doing so.
Jeff,
That perfectly illustrates what we on the right have been doing for the last couple of days. PEFECTLY.
I swear, no one puts it all together like you do.
If any of you would like to see the left react like a bunch of rabid moonbats, hop on over to my blog. I don’t know where they are coming from but it is moonbat central.
umm… that should say PERFECTLY. But yall knew that, right?
No, Everyone—including the crawfish—knew there was a possibility of a levee break; just not necessarily on that particular day. The media are taking it out of context so the government looks clueless.
How do we wrest control of the media from these clowns? I’m bone-tired of allowing them to make up history so that it serves their own purposes….
tw: speak, They don’t speak for me.
Background of Stafford.
It is important to distiguish between the levee being overtopped, which most expected, and the levee failing, which was not expected. If the levee had been overtopped, say the water level goes a foot above it, some water spills in for a bit, then as the flood recedes the levee begins working again and you only have a foot or two of water inside, easy for the pumps to remove. When the levee collapsed, the food water continues to pour into the city until it is the same inside as out, a much more catastrophic scenario.
On the positive side, the Mayor was just on CNN stating it was important to get the corpses rounded up, because mosquitoes are hatching that will feed on the corpses and spread disease all over the south.
I am so reassured knowing we have people like this in charge.
Can we be honest? Blanco and Nagin screwed this up from soup to nuts. Nagin should have used his OpPlan which called for the use of School and NORTA busses…they weren’t used and are lying drowned.
Blanco should have used the NG to ruthlessly put down the looters. She didn’t
As this website says she didn’t ask for section 402 or 403 of the Stafford Act to get help.
The President’s current response may be illegal.
Is it any surprize that the Clintonistas are working so hard to pin the blame on Bush? Lee Witt was part of the group that was supposed to fix the disaster and evacuation plan for NOLA. He was retained by the Blanco administration to give advice about the current situation…..
You know what the truly execrable thing is about all this reflexive political hackery? It’s that it’s sending all the usual suspects into all their accustomed barricades and mining the middle ground in between. Which wouldn’t really be a problem, except that we can do better at consequence management, and we’ll have to if the bad guys ever slip one in under our guard again.
Politicizing this means that nothing will ever get fixed, and more people will pay the price next time.
See, one of the problems with the current reaction—in addition to the subversive motives of the Left—is that we’re now in the age of instant communication.
In the old days, it might take a couple of weeks to get a report from a battlefield 20 miles away. Or a declaration of war. It gave the king a couple of days to decide on a response. Thinking was possible
Now, communication has accelerated to such a degree that we are expected to respond instantly—or, we can respond instantly. And we can do it without much thought: from ear or eye directly to mouth without an intervening thought.
Very efficient.
Frankly, I suspect this will have a corrosive effect on our democracy—and you can steal that idea for any thesis you may be considering. Take it to the hoop.
I mean what happens in the event of a report claiming that China pushed the button? How long does the President have to consider the accuracy of the report and respond? What if it’s phony report and he nukes Shanghai? What if he doesn’t and loses the entire West Coast?
That’s why it’s incumbent on us to refute political lies immediately and vigorously. We simply don’t have the time to let them run around the world before we can get our pants on…
Jeff; I just had a semi-involved comment eaten up by the apparent blacklisting of the link to the DHS’ December 2004 National Response Plan (or some variant or root link thereof).
So I guess I’ll sum up quickly: proactive federal action can be taken in (page 61/114 of the document) in certain instances and (2) by the time the president makes his emergency declaration… in this case, 2 days before the hurricane made landfall… the games of “Mother, May I” are over (table on page 111/114).
I don’t understand what you’re saying, norbizness. Mother May I? Have you read through Moran’s timeline (linked above)? I think it helps put everything into perspective a bit better.
From what I can see, Blanco made a couple of late decisions. But you check for yourself. I think you’ll see that the national media’s portrayal of this whole thing has been, from the outset, uninformed and sensationalistic, which may end up making matters worse in the long run.
Jeff: I’m talking about procedural “Mother May I” in the disaster recovery plan, which ends by the time the President makes his emergency declaration. I really don’t think that the feds are procedurally hamstrung after that event, although there may be information that the feds need from a state or local official that isn’t timely provided. Trust me, I’d love to put up the link to the government document, but it’s blacklisted by your publishing program.
There is not a point in time, without an official request from the state or a declaration of martial law, the the President can take command of the LANG or send in Active Duty Military to police civilians. To do so would be an impeachable offense.
Email me the link?
The procedural Mother May I that I think you’re talking about is moot, except with regard to sending in additional troops, which is what we were talking about, and which is Constitutionally prohibited so long as LA’s government is still functioning. Beyond that, FEMA was working in coordination with the local government on a preconceived plan, and they did so exactly as they were supposed to. It looks like the local component of that plan failed thanks to some snafus and indecisions on the part of Nagin and Blanco. You’ll note from the time line that FEMA had everything in place before the storm. That’s why I asked if you’d read that post.
According to page 62 of the NRP “The NRP Catastrophic Incident Supplement (described in the Catastrophic Incident Annex) addresses resource and procedural implications of catastrophic events…” The Catastrophic Incident Annex (which can be found in the full text version of the NRP(pdf) says:
Sounds like State/local would still be calling the shots. It may very well be that the feds could have mobilized the military units more quickly. They still wouldn’t have been able to do anything until local asked them to. (This post by rto, an active duty soldier involved, says that “Louisiana’s governor finally activated the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) that would allow Guard troops from out of state come in to Louisiana to help on Wednesday.” That could be the “paperwork” that didn’t come through til Thursday.)
I don’t think I’ll comment on this any further, because I’m not comfortable enough with the process to add any further, and I don’t want to enter any sort of “blame game”. (Also I’d rather not spend Labor Day examining DHS documents.) I will say that I doubt Bush had the authority to just send in troops, even after a state of emergency was declared.
I did a tinyurl of the full text pdf version of norbizness’s link above.
The page numbers norbizness mentions may not match up exactly.
Thank God for technically competent people like dork. Since it’s a large document, incorporating many subject areas like emergency proactive federal action and use of the DoD (I think this is what my community cable access show hosts are always freaking out about). I’m still unsure why paperwork had to come to Washington for Richardson or Granholm to share troops with the affected area, however. It’s probably been pointed out to me numerous times, but goddamn I’m lazy.
Mayhap they can reconvene the 9/11 Commission, give it a new name (suggestion: the Lake New Orleans Commission), and spend a couple years figuring out who to blame (suggestion: Saddam Hussein; alternate: William Rehnquist).
here’s a link to a transcript with a NG general yesterday. i’m beginning to think that it’s not so much that people didn’t respond quickly enough as they couldn’t exactly get to NO in large numbers.
much, much more on the page linked.
maggie <a href=”http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2005/tr20050903-3850.html” target=”_blank”>that</a> is one eye opening press conference. I tell you, this old heartless, ice water veined ex-Marine had some moist eyes.
If you haven’t, Jeff, you should read it. It puts a lot of things in perspective.
tw:miss.Don’t miss it.
Our governor declared a state of emergency in Iowa on Thursday 9/1 allowing us to deploy troops, deploy medical personel, suspend some laws governing interstate trucking and a list of other items. Several neighboring states made the same declaration on the same day, allowing the same items. At the time I wondered why they waited so long.
Who pulls the trigger on the EMAC? Also, while serving under EMAC, don’t troops remain under state command (ie: the Governor) and not federal? And as such wouldn’t their orders then still come out of state command and not out of Washington?
well, thank gerard vanderluen for linking it on his site (american digest)
From your link, rls
Mike C
Did you also note that the reason was that the Gov did not request the necessary Military Police until Wednesday. Did you also note that 2/3 of NOPD had either quit or just did not show up.
Read the rest of the response and why they waited.
Tink,
Go to the link and read it. All your questions can be answered there. Very informative.
Jeff–
You must read the Times-Picayune <a href=”story Ahem linked to. It is filled with amazing details about the time it takes to evacuate, the problems with Rte 10 flooding, the margin of error in hurricane forecasting (85 miles either way), etc.
Your honor, this is a very important article that should be entered into evidence in this case of Medicrats v. Bush.
I botched the font, but the link works
Regarding your update 3, Jeff, its easy to charge incompetence when one is too freaking ignorant to have any understanding of the magnitude of the disaster and what kind of work it takes to actually accomplish anything.
Instead we get Landrieu tearing up in a helicopter.
I’ve seen in a couple of places news that hints that there isn’t an intention of allowing people to remain in New Orleans over the short term. The Red Cross says that it is being excluded from the city so that its relief efforts don’t encourage people to stay. That decision is going to have an enormous political cost – watch the Bush administration be castigated as dictatorial when its realized – but will save lives on the bottom line.
Thanks to Protein Wisdom and its commenters for putting this together.
rls
Major brain cramp on my end. I read the link and the quote, the “who pulls the trigger” question should have been backspaced out but I didn’t.
I had my husbands orders spread out all over my desk and was trying to figure out the “paperwork from Washington” remark.
(on a side note, all orders give me brain cramps)
All of my husbands orders both state and title 10 (federal) came out of state command and were “signed” by state command officers so I still can’t figure out what “paperwork from Washington” was being waited on – especially when the force would be serving at the request of a governor – and would remain under state command, not federal.
Now it’s late and I probably make NO sense at all, so I’m heading to bed before my brain explodes.
The more I read this Times-Picayune series on New Orleans washing away: Washing Away – June 23-27, 2002 , the more I think we can chalk this whole tragedy up to massive denial.
Two years ago, the writers prognosticated everything that we see today. They should have put money on it.
Read:
Evacuation
The Big One
by John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein.
It appears to me that many of the first responders were there to help people, not to defend themselves against roaming bands of Mad Max who were shooting at firemen,aid helicopters and, or so it seems, anybody who came in range.
The responders needed protection and there was none available. Any post-mortem has to include that.
This posting is full of common sense, thanks. Thanks to all the commenters as well. Trying to escape responsibility for your own well-being is pathetic, but the people of New Orleans seem to be teeming with that characteristic. Poor little me, I’m so helpless, take care of me somebody. The sad thing is, they were that way before the hurricane too.
One thing that people do not realize is that what has happened in New Orleans was not the worst case that was feared. The worst case – which we came very close to if Katrina hadn’t suddenly dropped a category as it made landfall and wobbled a few miles to one side of New Orleans – would have been a storm surge pushing twice the water depth into New Orleans directly. Many thousands more people, if not tens of thousands more, would have drowned because of the ineffective evacuation and stubborn stay-behinds.
There’s one facet of the problem that arose that I don’t think anyone had previously considered, one that significantly contributed to the dilemma that New Orleans was in:
Too many survivors.
I don’t mean to sound callous, but the “worst case models” all assumed that a massive storm surge would flood the city. Storm surges hit quickly. In short, the emergency plans centered around the potential for the water that is currently in New Orleans to arive within the span of about 30 minutes. This would leave thousands dead, and precious few survivors. As events actually unfolded, the levees weren’t actually overcome with the surge at the magnitude that was expected, but rather so damaged with the additional pressure from the surge, some topping by the surge, and the incredible windspeed that they began to fail. This caused slow flooding, not the expected immediate deluge. This, in turn, led to more survivors/evacuees, and overwhelmed the response. The point I’m making here is why the MSM’s obsession with drawing parallels between the flooding and a WMD attack (especially nuclear) is absurd. A thermonuclear detonation of any size wouldn’t leave nearly as many people alive and in need of rescue/evacuation.
Another way this turn of events complicated matters was that most of the attention was diverted away from New Orleans when, with the storm’s passing, there was essentially an “all-clear” given. In short, since the city weathered the storm and wasn’t underwater, many assumed that NO had, once again, “dodged the bullet,” a statement that was used verbatim in the press. I would assume that upon this information (likely nearly the only information coming that soon after the storm), the relief effort was, at least momentarily, refocused upon the areas south of the city in Louisiana, and upon the state of Mississippi. Think about it: didn’t most of us go to bed Monday night thinking that New Orleans was ok? Tuesday’s first light brought ominous news–that the levees were in the process of failing. The relief efforts then had to be directed back towards the city again, and with this many people involved, even a 12-hour delay is significant.
In short, two major assumptions (which I’ve tried to roll collectively into the same error) may have significantly impacted the outcome. The first was that devastation would be complete and nearly immediate; the second, that devastation had been avoided, since there wasn’t complete and immediate devastation. Both conspired to provide more evacuees than were forseeable.
There was an unavoidable catastrophe (Katrina) that led to a largely avoidable tragedy (the countless dead due to breakdowns in the planning and exectution of the emergency response locally). Thanks so much, Jeff, for doing more than your share in bringing out the real facts within this disaster.
So, in the expected scenario, which would have killed most of those who didn’t evacuate—how is Bush blamed? Let’s count the ways ….
I guess Nagin is actually lucky it happened this way. Had the storm not turned, he’d have 50,000 dead immediately, wouldn’t he? And hundreds of buses floating empty.