You’re going outside the bounds of the discussion I was having with Levi. Go back and read the flow of the posts, and see what I’m objecting to about his statements. I was responding to his hypothetical, not about this particular hurricane.
But even still, the governor doesn’t just declare a state of emergency and then expect the feds to rush in and take over. The state authorities are in control, unless they relinquish that control to the Feds.
There are two issues that people are, I believe, confusing.
Who has primary responsibility to get aid to citizens in a disaster immediately?
Once the feds are called in for help, how soon can the help be expected?
The feds were slow to respond. They screwed up royally. But, that does not obsolve the state and local officials, who have to be the first responders in any disaster. The feds simply don’t have people/equipment in place in every city of the US. They are going to take time to get there.
Yeah, the local government screwed up. That’s a fact. But it’s a fact that has little to do with the rest of this country. That’s why people are not jumping down the local governments throats as badly as the federal government. The fact is, the federal government spent 4 long years and billions of taxpayer money to set up a new agency called Homeland Security. This was supposed to be our nice, bright and shiny disaster response unit. It failed miserably. That’s what people are up in arms about.
The answer to question #2 is 48-72 hours. Since the request for aid came the day before the hurricane hit, we can safely say that the federal government missed the deadline.
According to an ABC News poll, while most Americans blame both the federal and Lousiana gov’ts for dropping the ball, more say the state/local gov’t was not adequately prepared.
I won’t argue with any of that. There’s plenty of blame to be spread around, and good dose of it hangs on the Feds. The main point I was trying to make is that in almost any disaster the very first guys you would expect to see on the scene are the local authorities-- police, fire, rescue, etc. What I’d expect from the Feds is to bring in money, manpower and equipment that the state simply can’t muster. But you’re not going to see any of that on the day 1.
It means nothing that Blanco hasn’t signed over permission. Any president can federalize the National Guard with no state authority.
I feel that the local, state, and federal goverments all share the blame for the disaster response equally. Where there is no equality between them is the fact that it is the federal government’s fault (and more specifically, this administrations) that the project to shore up the levees wasn’t completed by the middle of this summer as estimated when the project began.
No levee broke that was shored up by the join SELA/ACoE project.
Actually, I believe it does say that. Did you read my link? I’ll re-post what I think are the relevant sections:
So here’s how I read that: First, the DHS can pre-empt any formal declarations of emergency and start, albeit in some abstract limited capacity, positioning relief supplies in nearby areas (they didn’t). Then, if any one of the 4 qualifications listed above occur, it BECOMES the RESPONSIBILITY of the Secretary of DHS to coordinate recovery efforts. In any hypothetical, any one of those 4 elements would trigger said responsibility. In this specific case, we have all freaking 4! So it seems to me that the responsibility to coordinate recovery has shifted to the Feds.
See above, and please let me know if you believe I have misinterpreted those passages.
That does not absolve the Governor of her responsibilities, either. She damn well should’ve followed her own State’s plans and pre-positioned those school buses to aid in the evacuation. By not doing so, she then hampered the ability of the Feds to respond as effectively as they otherwise might’ve been able to and many more lives were lost than would have to have been (may she rot in hell).
However, the Feds then proved themselves to be the fucking Keystone Cops here. They not only dragged their damn feet and played political games, but they outright HAMPERED the evacuation process!! (May THEY all rot in hell).
And yet, you are still confused by the verbiage on that link. The whole point of all of the information you keep posting is to say that as of March 1, 2003 that the then new Department of Homeland Security became responsible for all of FEMA’s prior duties and responsibilities. It does not change what FEMA’s responsibility is. It does not abdicate the state’s responsibility. The state is still in charge even right this second.
The feds responsibility is to support LA, Miss, Alabama in their recover efforts. It is also their responsibility to mitigate any damage the rest of the country will suffer because of the disaster. i.e.; releasing the oil reserves.
To make what I quoted from you above accurate look at what I changed in blue. Subtle but major difference.
That is absolutely not true. Did you even read the link (not my reply, the link I provided to the actual “National Response Plan of the Department of Homeland Security”)? That isn’t even remotely what that 114 page document is about! It’s fair if you want to interpret the verbiage differenly, but utterly ridiculous to expect me to even consider your interpretation when you clearly don’t even know the first thing about what the document even is. It is the DHS’s version of the Louisiana Emergency Plan, outlining what is considered a national disaster requiring their assistance and the roles and responsibilities of every party to them, including when they step in and in what capacity.
I believe I said the exact fucking opposite. Again, try actually reading the print in black on your screen.
No, the state is still in charge of their own National Guard, not the entire recovery effort.
Then tell me why in the name of all that is holy that they’re not only not supporting it, but HAMPERING it?!!!
Some former FEMA people don’t seem to agree with the assesment that the feds would have had to wait on their hands until they got local permission:
We should also note that Blanco’s letter to the President and several other communications state over and over that the disaster is expected to be beyond state capability to deal with.
There’s also the issue of the many federal resources that, slightly contrary to John Mace’s assesment about the feds just not being able to have things there in time, WERE these, but went unused for lack of the orders they required. For instance, the USS Bataan was sailing behind the hurricane in order to provide relief… but had to wait for Presidential orders.
But of course, the federal aid just happened to get there only when the President had his increasingly bizarre photo-op. It wasn’t there ready to act but not acting until his arrival, right? That was just a coincidence.
Chertoff was briefed on the leeves. In fact, the situation that they were seeing was in fact WORSE than what actually happened: the overtopping that would have left the water level even higher.
But of course, why would a man who isn’t at fault because his hands were tied by local foulups lie over and over again?
Hey, here’s a concept that nobody has seemed to want to put foreward. Next time the state or feds declare a state of emergency, how’s about instead of having ‘muddied chains of command’ and ‘lax coordination between agencies,’ instead the state government is dissolved, and all powers are then placed on the shoulders of the state’s Adjutant General (or NG Commandant, or whatever the state title is)? Hell, it’s those outfits which are going to be doing the heavy lifting, right? So why not give them the sole responsability, and sole authority to do something?
True, but note that the whole idea is to allow SOME pre-positioning so that paperwork doesn’t stall things. Note the use of the term 'limitted". IOW, the feds just can’t come in and “take over”. I do agree, however, that there is no evidence that the feds used this authority to preposition anything (as they should have).
Not quite. You seem to have missed one key word (my emphasis):
You seem to be equating “operations” with “federal operations”. Are you saying that, in a state of emergency, the Sec of Homeland Security becomes the immediate supervisor of all the state and local law enforcemnet agencies? IOW, does the N.O. police chief now have to answer to the DoHL and take orders from that agency?
Just to be clear, I never claimed that the feds had NO resources that could be mustered quickly. I just said that I can’t imagine that every city in the US would DEPEND on the feds to be able to do so. To the extent that federal personell or equipment WAS available, it should of course be used.
Go back and re-read Leviasarus’s first post to see what I was objecting to.
Yes, I noted the term ‘limited’, and even isolated it and commented that the limitations were somewhat abstract, as they don’t bother to spell out in what way they are limited, which I find odd in a document that encompassing and detailed. I think it’s a gross oversight, which is probably what caused them not to bother to pre-position anything, because even they had no clue what their limitations were in that regard. Sloppy and inefficient. And no, I don’t believe that that section implies that the feds can just come in and take over, it’s addressing something else entirely at that point.
But at least we agree that the feds dropped that particular ball. Good start.
It’s not that I’m missing that word, I guess I’m just interpreting its use in this situation differently from you. Obviously if the state declares a “state of emergency,” the feds have not only no jurisdiction, but no responsibility to even respond. It’s not until the Federal Government – the President – declares it a national emergency/national disaster that the federal agencies step in. And since that’s what happened in this case, and since President Bush authorized the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts, then they are the supervising body. That means the N.O. police may still answer to their Governor, but since she has to coordinate with DHS, now that they’ve taken on that responsibility, they can direct her to direct the police in certain activities. But I also believe that communication is intended to be bi-directional, and her input would be critical in the Secretary of DHS’s decision-making and effort coordinating.
Again, perhaps I’m reading it all wrong. But either way, there certainly were responsibilities the DHS and FEMA had, conferred on them by the President of the United States, that they did not fulfill. The role the American public were led to believe the DHS would fulfill in the event of exactly this kind of emergency, and the role they actually took, are two completely different things. That’s one of the biggest failures I see after the catastrophic loss of life. We were sold a bill of goods about our security now that this body was in place, and it all came crumbling down like a house of cards when the wind started to blow.
Stephe96, have you read any of the other posts in all these hurricane threads? Every single one of your conservative brethen has ripped **all ** the levels of the government in this fuck up. Of course the local people screwed the pooch here, but how does that excuse anyone else?
Your obvious partisanship and cracks about liberals has only weakened your position, and quite honestly, made the rest of your opinions irrelevant and worthless. I’d say you should quit while you’re ahead, but my advice is about as late as Bush and the rest of this clusterfuck we call government was, is, and forever will be.
One of the things that scares me so badly about this whole snafu is the bill of good the country was sold on DoHS. If they can’t respond quickly and effectively to something when they had warning it was going to happen, what in the world would they do if someone decided to drop a bomb? No advance notice is usually given.
John, if I get you correctly, you’re saying that the Feds shouldn’t have had anything to do with the evac efforts before the hurricane hit, right? Okay, fine, I agree with you.
However, in my analogy, I mentioned a nuclear attack. In the case of a nuclear attack, there would be no forewarning and no evac before the incident. Evacuations of survivors would occur *after * the event happened. In such case, there wouldn’t necessarily be any request from the local governments - because the local governments might not exist any longer. Should the DoHS sit on its hands then?
As I see it, you’re entire argument can be summarized as “the DoHS could not perform its duties in New Orleans because the local government hadn’t requested help in the exact right combination of words.” As **Shayna ** has pointed out, requests were made, statements of the state’s inability to respond were clearly spelled out. Therefore it is only the syntax you object to.
In the case of a large scale disaster, I expect the DoHS to be able to look beyond issues of semantics. I also would expect them to have their resources in place immediately, in anticipation of their assistance being requested. Since they are supposed to be the big authorities on incidents such as these, I expect them to have the correct judgement about when and where their resources should be put. I expect them to have clear processes in place and be organized and effective. They failed on each of these, and this was an *anticipated * event. Are we to expect they will perform better in an unanticipated event? I think not.
I’m not sure we’re in that much disagreement. Fuck-ups abound at all levels, and like or not, Bush is going to bear the most of the blame.
Refering to your post above, did Bush declare a “national emergency” or a “state of emergency in Louisiana”? Is there a differene? Doesn’t a delcaration of a “state of emergency” have more to do with the automatic release of certain funds and personnel than a change of state vs federal authority?