A robust emergency plan has to be followed in order to work. The Mayor trapped the poor inside the city while the plan called for evacuation outside the city. Which is where the supplies were. Not only did the Governor refuse to approve National Guard troops for police duty (to stop the riots) those same Guards blocked supplies into the city. The entire NO fiasco started with the Mayor and continued on through to the Governor. Since the Hurricane did not hit New Orleans directly the Mayor’s indecision was certainly responsible for the redirection of rescue efforts from area’s that were harder hit.
Your “competent” Mayor (a former cable TV executive) totally miscalculated the situation. He just finished taping a public announcement video describing the need for complete evacuation in a hurricane of level 2 or greater so he was briefed on the seriousness of the situation. Ironically that was to air this month. On top of that, the Director of NOAH’s National Hurricane Center (Max Mayfield) went out of his way to call the Mayor directly to warn him (as well as the Governor).
What did Bush do? He declared the area a disaster area before the hurricane hit (which is unusual). There were 30,000 National Guardsman inserted into the area before it struck. 35% of all the Coast Guard Rescue helicopters were brought in for a total that of something like 370 for the region. FEMA brought in rescue squads from all over the country including the Texas Park Ranger fan boats that you saw on TV trying to work around the riots. This in a state that is lousy with boats. There were supplies staged all over the region behind the hurricane in cities like Mobile and Birmingham. Additional troops (both National Guard and army) were brought in after the Governor lost control of the situation.
In short, the Federal Government had to step in and fix a mess that never should have occurred. All the money used for rescuing the people stranded by the Mayor could have gone back into the area for reconstruction. It could also have been used to rescue people in remote areas of Mississippi which were harder hit… It would have been a simple matter to go into New Orleans with a fleet of small boats and rescue the stragglers stayed behind. Instead, the Mayor trapped 20,000 people in a city that was at serious risk of flooding. The ensuing riots further prevented the rescue boats from moving through the city. Instead, helicopters were used almost exclusively in the first critical days of rescue. Not only did the Mayor piss away his chance to use school and metro buses for evacuation (per the emergency plan) he lost them all in the flood.
As I said in a different thread, that excuse could barely fly if Democrats controlled congress. When lives are on the line, you have to err on the side that will save lives. When one considers the fact that Bush’s side controls congress, not acting sooner then reeks of cowardice.
Besides, Blanco had declared on her August 27 declaration that “this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.”
The mainstream media via “unnamed” sources on the Bush administration denied that declaration ever happened! The media had to correct the reports later, but I am sure you heard the correction, no?
Oh, and the timeline really shows a clueless president:
Come on, ya know what I meant. I hope your Mayor is on top of things. Can’t say I’m convinced mine is but I’m not one to count on government help.
I"m not giving FEMA a pass (simply because of who heads it) but they’re getting blamed for the wrong thing. I’ve been on this from day one and the things FEMA screwed up had nothing to do with the fiasco in NO.
This was one of the largest rescue operations ever and it turned into a political witch-hunt from day one instead of rallying people to the cause. Although the Governor may have had more to do with dragging out the rescue efforts I’m more irritated by the Mayor’s behavior when it was all his mess in the first place.
I agree he should have taken control from the state/local authorities after it was abvious people were dying due to their fuck-ups. But surely you aren’t suggesting he should have done it prepare for, or immediately (first 2 days) after the hurricane hit. I have no doubt that if he did it at all that many (especially on this board) would scream bloody murder if he invoked the Inurresction act and virtually nullified Louisiana’s State’s Rights, and the conspiracy theorists would be coming out of the woodwork, over “a few desperate looters just trying not to starve to death”. I guess then we would be debating this in the thread titled “Should Bush be impeached for overreacting in NOLA”. I would prefer that than the reality that I cannot depend on my government if something happened in my city.
Still reeks of cowardice, the fact was that Blanco gave Bush a big butt-covering device on her earlier proclamation.
One has to ask: since when a conspiracy theorist has been taken seriously by the feds? Oh, and it is amusing to see that it would be scary to debate a strong action by the president, (an action that could be explained later and the conspiracy theorists discredited then) rather than what it is happening now: discussing why a president froze because he decided to anticipate the blame game, rather than do the right thing.
Why does Bush have to take control? I checked the references given for the entry on Disaster Relief found here and found this in the relevant miltary regulation. (pdf)
I’m not entirely clear as to why Bush would need to assume control in order to hasten aid as the NYT article claims. The logistics of deploying, the actual time needed to get troops and equipment from A to B, wouldn’t change had Bush invoked the Insurrection Act. He already has the authority to order troop deployment, and the Governor of the state made it clear that the situation warranted such aid.
I actually have an answer for the OP: he approved Michael Brown to be the Director of FEMA, or, well, I should use his technical title: Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response. Of all the Americans who might be able to prepare for Katrina hitting New Orleans, it was Mr. Brown, with his extensive background in horses, who President Bush $elected for the task.
Not by hiring unqualified campaign flunkies to head Emergency Management Agencies, that’s for sure.
Clueless leadership(Who knew the levees could break? Who knew?), cronyism replacing expertise in critical positions, the Bush Administration has no end of excuses for its entirely inadequate response to a national disaster. It’s a good thing Bush didn’t campaign on being better than his opponent at keeping people safe otherwise this fiasco might reflect poorly on his leadership skills.
“State and local governments are looking to us for leadership. They are looking to FEMA to tell them where are the holes in response plans? Where are the holes in our mutual aid agreements? What incentives can you provide us to fill those holes? I think my role is a very serious one. I think the agency’s role is a very serious one, that we should not just wait for someone to petition or request that we evaluate, that those types of plans should be evaluated (plans regarding evacuations) on an ongoing basis. It would be my intent to somehow implement the ongoing evaluation so we do not have to look in hindsight and say, gosh, we wish we had looked at that. We should be looking at that all the time to make sure they (plans) are adequate, and I will pledge to you that we will certainly do that.”
Here is a good article from the Sunday Washington Post that identifies how everyone up and down the line, from the local to the Federal level, screwed up. Finally, a balanced assessment. Everybody screwed up.
I also recommend this Op Ed piece originally published in the Washington Post by Charles Krauthammer. He reminds us that this was first and foremost a natural disaster. If we must search for whom to blame, “The suffering was augmented, aided and abetted in descending order of culpability by the following:”
The Mayor of New Orleans, the Governor of Louisiana, the head of FEMA, the President, Congress, and the American People.