I side with you 100% on this but that’s still not the cause of the NO mess. The Mayor had no political background and I tend to think you get what you voted for. However, in the case of FEMA there is no room for cronyism. There are a lot of organizational skills that a Director of a company brings to the table but there are plenty of Director’s to go around. The head of FEMA needs an additional background in logistics as well as an idea how Local/State/Federal governments operate.
I don’t see anything done on a Federal level that would have helped the situation prior to the Hurricane, short of removing people from power and usurping control. It reminds me of the still ongoing debacle in California regarding their power grid. It was announced a year prior to the blackouts that they were going to have that problem and they literally did nothing. The obvious solution was to build peak-use turbines as an interim solution. It takes 6 months to construct one. The blackouts occurred and their response was… to build peak-use turbines. They still haven’t constructed a new power plant.
I’m not sure the head of FEMA did anything specifically wrong at this point and might actually be the Federal scapegoat for the sins of the State. I do think there are major flaws in how FEMA is being used since it was folded into Homeland Security. As soon as I get a better picture of their role in this I will post my opinion with specific reasons. Until then I will award President Bush the golden cattle-prod award for his choice of head of FEMA. Regardless of performance in this, the man was certainly not the most qualified for the position.
And here’s a pretty good article from the SJ Merc: What Went Wrong. It’s interesting what FEMA actually did do, and I think most people would be surprised indeed to learn that, for example:
Emphasis added. “FEMA did absolutely nothing” seems to be a common refrain.
I wouldn’t argue too much with Krauthammer’s opinion pieces (I read it a few days ago and thought it was mostly on the mark) except that I reverse the order of Naigin and Blanco. Not calling out enough Nat’l Guard early on was probably the biggest mistake. As much as we all would have wanted the entire city to evacuate, it’s an almost impossible task to accomplish.
I know its a little late, but I need to weigh in on this comment.
What the hell does this have to do with any of the previous posts or my original questions? Did I ask anything about the local governments of LA, the city of NO, or the sanity of someone living in a city below sea level? And since when did I ever blame Bush for not stopping Katrina(that one really blew me)? My question was strictly factual and whatever was implied was done entirely by you. It’s a shame someone can’t ask a question that deals with politics without someone else saying its a crime to ask it in the first place? It puts a real burden on people, like me, looking for honest unadultured information.
If you don’t have anything useful to say or you don’t like the question, then stay out of the thread. I think you would fit better on a message board called “The Party Line” Dope, or something to that effect.
Instead of moving the thread to GD it think people like Klondike should learn the appropriate forums in which to post their comments.(with all due respect to our great mod samclem ) Start a new thead of you want, just don’t hijack mine.
Actually, I heard an NPR piece in which the contractor charged with delivering ice to New Orleans complained that he delivered ice to the place where FEMA ordered it, but there was no one there to meet them or take it away or anything, so the drivers didn’t know what to do and were getting back to him and he couldn’t get anyone at FEMA to tell hm where to put it.
Might hav e ben covering his ass, but it’s so consistent with the tales of FEMA fuckups that I tend to believe it.
Who knows how many other lies conservative Krauthammer might have gone for in that piece?
I like all the sites people keep posting and hope this continues. Each one adds a piece to the puzzle. I wish I had given names to all the links I’ve stored so I could reference them faster.
I would disagree with your assessment of the Mayor. I think his actions started a ball rolling that made things exponentially worse. If he stuck to the plan and evacuated people out of the city they would have been connected to the supplies that were in place. The Federal pre-deployment was in place as well as the supplies.
Although I’m blaming the Mayor first (among many) I would like to address one of the catch-all problems involved in this. This was an unprecedented event for both Local, State, and Federal authorities. Yes, it was predictable and seemingly obvious on all levels but there is common theme to all of this and that is a lack of practice. From all levels, this was not practiced for and without that training, people in power were hesitant to act. They had a course of action but no real plan. Even NYC, which actively planned for emergencies, found themselves with unforeseen obstacles.
Putting myself in everyone’s position gives me a prospective that armchair quarterbacking does not. The Mayor new full well what to expect but had never actually evacuated a city. This is a simple task on a very large scale (making it a difficult task). The problems involved in this would not be apparent until it’s tried. Emergency plans are guidelines of what needs to be done but cannot contain all the instructions necessary to complete the task. The Governor was put in the position of ordering troops into a police action. Certainly a very unpopular decision.
The one person that stands out in all of this was Max Mayfield (Director of NOAH’s National Hurricane Center). He went out of his way to personally call any and all people who could make a difference. He was well connected on all levels and took full advantage of that. In a situation that required interaction in both directions of hierarchy he went the full mile.
Whether or not the Mayor or the Governor is responsible for the fuckups in New Orleans is not something that I, as a non-citizen of Louisiana and a non-resident of New Orleans. They will answer to the voters of their respective governments, and if we see the normal level of intelligence and discretion shown by Louisiana voters, not a hell of a lot good will happen.
As a US citizen, it does matter what I think of the Federal response, and all the evidence is pointing to major, major suckitude on FEMA’s part. Bush’s decision to appoint incompetent party hack fuckups to head FEMA is inexcrable. Where is the competence of the Clinton FEMA adminstration? Is this more neocon “government is bad, so let’s intentionally fuck it up” crap? Sure looks like it.
Beyond your dislike of all things Republican, what are you blaming the head of FEMA for? I don’t approve of his appointment and stated so but the thread asked what Bush did to prepare for Katrina. What, in your opinion, was FEMA supposed to do that wasn’t done? The city was supposed to be evacuated by Local and State authorities prior to the hurricane. That is not the function of FEMA. First the Mayor failed and then the Governor failed. How frickin hard is it to gather school buses together from around your own state? FEMA is a coordinating agency. It has no assets… If the State doesn’t cooperate or is ineffective with those efforts then you end up going farther and farther out of the affected zone to get the assets you need.
) Start a new thead of you want, just don’t hijack mine.