Bush wants to know "what went right and what went wrong"
- Thread starter MIMIC
- Start date
- Status
Haven't you heard? The Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana are going to take the fall... at least that's the impression I got from FNC today, so I'm pretty sure it was the subject of their daily memo. Leave it to people like my mother to eat it right up.
Hitokage said:
Of course.
One of my right-wing friends was already blaming the mayor and governor already a few days ago, saying the feds did the best they could.
wheeeeeeeeeeeeee (9:16:58 PM): there are probably things that could have been done better, but overall the federal government did what it is designed to do
wheeeeeeeeeeeeee (9:17:49 PM): in a disaster, they are built to ASSIST local governments, not replace them
wheeeeeeeeeeeeee (9:18:39 PM): and the mayor and governor of Louisiana have proven to be totally incompetent but Tim Russert asks Chertoff "Are you planning on handing in your resignation?"
wheeeeeeeeeeeeee (9:21:08 PM): the plan written in 2000 said the poor people should be moved out on school buses and public transport buses
wheeeeeeeeeeeeee (9:21:12 PM): the mayor never did that
wheeeeeeeeeeeeee (9:21:41 PM): and the only reason the city was evacuated at all was that Bush had to plead with Blanco to do it
wheeeeeeeeeeeeee (9:22:17 PM): not only did they not use the buses to move them out before the storm, they didn't move the buses, so they were mostly destroyed and couldn't be used after the storm
goodcow said:
local government.
I can see the argument the feds were late, probably 24-48 hours, but when they got there at least they were organized.
There is certainly blame to be shared, but the local and state government utterly and completely failed to fulfill their duties on all accounts. They deserve the lions-share of any finger pointing. Utterly pathetic.
Hitokage said:
Is it any wonder then that Republican strategists and co. are openly putting precisely that case forward -- without any responsibility directed at the federal level?
See it in action.
MIMIC said:
What does the size matter? That has nothing to do with the mayor completely failing to implement his government's own evacuation plan, and the governor completely failing in her duties as commander of the guard.
Obviously cleaning up is something they can't handle, but the mayor and governor could have easily mitigated the problems as there should have been FAR less people left in the city, and far more troops, etc handling crowd control.
Phoenix
Member
Onix said:
What disaster were you watching. Hell even when it came time to evacuate the survivors they weren't organized. They are STILL trying to 'find' places to send survivors and are relying on citizens, charities and faith based groups to actually deal with caring for the survivors.
No, they ALL do. FEMA (the FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY) is resposible for national disasters, not state and local government. By charter and design this falls under the jurisdiction of FEMA and FEMA has the right and authority to overrule state and local government completely and totally in these matters.
The Mayor and the Governor did what they could considering the limited funding they had. But the Federal Government is who oversees the whole thing, and they should receive the brunt of the criticism (and outside of Right-wing circles, they are). But I should've known better than to expect Bush not to find a scapegoat for this.
Phoenix,
Read my post above.
I'm not talking about the handling now ... I'm talking about the issues before that led to the current situation.
I know they're still having huge problems, but it would NOT have came to this level if the mayor and governor hadn't completely and utterly dropped the ball.
Even with all the problems, it's still an improvement. At least order has been somewhat restored. As far as finding placed for people, unfortunately that's a bit of a political mess. FEMA can't just order States that aren't in a federal disaster situation to accept people. It'll get done, but there is some red tape. Most states have already accepted it though ... even my county (Erie, NY) which is technically bancrupt :lol
Read my post above.
I'm not talking about the handling now ... I'm talking about the issues before that led to the current situation.
I know they're still having huge problems, but it would NOT have came to this level if the mayor and governor hadn't completely and utterly dropped the ball.
Even with all the problems, it's still an improvement. At least order has been somewhat restored. As far as finding placed for people, unfortunately that's a bit of a political mess. FEMA can't just order States that aren't in a federal disaster situation to accept people. It'll get done, but there is some red tape. Most states have already accepted it though ... even my county (Erie, NY) which is technically bancrupt :lol
MIMIC said:
Besides, why didn't Giuliani have a contingency plan for planes hitting the world trade center?!?!?! If they would've just gotten all the employees on busses before the planes hit, everybody would be OK! Oh geez, oh my, if Giuliani wasn't prepared for this, someone with the proper intelligence who could see the warning signs, even if they were in a memo put right on his desk surely wouldn't be!
Everytime Bush goes back to Crawford some shit happens.
Everyone knew the hurricane was coming, though. Though the local government perhaps should've done more and done it faster, the federal government was keen to sit on their asses for a few days before actually helping. They knew it was coming, just like the New Orleanians did, they knew the reprecussions would be huge. They did nothing. Perhaps both parties should share the blame, but not one or the other.
And as soon as I say that, I see this:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050907/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/katrina_disaster_response
Brown waited until after the storm had already to hit to even ask Chertoff about sending anyone. Then he only sent 1,000 people and gave them 2 days to get there. Yup, it's officially mostly the Federal government's fault now.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050907/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/katrina_disaster_response
Brown waited until after the storm had already to hit to even ask Chertoff about sending anyone. Then he only sent 1,000 people and gave them 2 days to get there. Yup, it's officially mostly the Federal government's fault now.
Phoenix
Member
Onix said:
They mayor and in particular the governor have considerable responsibility in what has happened for those that they evacuated to various locations like the convention center and the superdome. Neither has the right nor manpower to actually force people out of their homes - which would require the use of the national guard troops beyond just those of the state. There are also some failing in the various emergency service sectors of the police and the fire department.
Actually they can. FEMA has considerable powers at its disposal including the suspension of elections.
Did the Mayor mandate an evacuation? Did he actually follow his own city's evacuation procedure?
Did the governor order the guard to help with crowd control? Did she even put them in the outskirts of the city before this all happened?
The federal government does NOT oversee an evacuation or deployment of state commanded troops before an event happens. That IS the job of the local and state governments in our country.
Once the event occurred, and it was obviously of a scale to be a federal disaster are ... then it's there job to oversee, and deploy everything and anything needed. They were slow to do this, that is known ... but human scale of this disaster was greatly exasperated due to the inaction of the mayor and governor. They failed in their respective jobs. It's not like this was something completely new or unexpected - this is part of their job description.
If were gonna call Bush a finger-pointer, what the hell are we gonna call the mayor? Have you listened to the venomous shit being spewed from his mouth?
If Brown and/or Chertoff arent fired and F.E.M.A isnt separated from homeland security and given its former level of authority...this administration will be proven more inept and dishonest than any of us could have imagined.
This whole thing is like a demonstration of mismanagment of epic proportions.
This whole thing is like a demonstration of mismanagment of epic proportions.
I agree there were failing everywhere. While it's questionable how easily they could have 'forced' people that didn't want to go, did they actually move all the people that wanted to but couldn't?
The city evacuation plan actually spells out using all city/state vehicles for evacuations if necessary. How many countless people were forced to the Superdome, convention center, or just plain stayed home becuase there wasn't transportation? Meanwhile, all the city/state vehicles were sitting in there parking lots. Crap, the people of NO had more brains, since some of them used common sense and hijacked school busses to transport people. Busses were SUPPOSED to be used for that.
As far as manpower, there were certainly enough available guard troops to maintain SOME semblance of crowd control had they actually been IN the city.
Yes, they can. But they will not use that power unless their hand is forced. They ask for help (at least from unaffected states) first.
As far as the federal government, it'll be interesting to see just how bad they fucked up. You all may be right that they screwed the pooch just as bad ... I just can't understand how they can get the majority of the blame though.
They screwed up after the fact, while everyone else screwed up before ... which led to the bigger problem we're left with.
Phoenix
Member
Onix said:
You want the mayor to evacuate the city? I guess you wanted the police and fire department to evacuate too?
No, and that is her fault.
Uh no, totally incorrect. That is what FEMA does - that is why it exists. Its purpose is to plan for and have staged emergency response for any one of a myriad of disasters which is why it was put under the department of homeland security.
What his pleas for help, asking people to stop praising the success of the relief effort that was resulting in people dying all over the city?
The fact is that this is a disaster, natural or otherwise, on a scale that the US hasn't seen on its own territory since the Civil War. Such is the scope of the devestation, human suffering, and loss of life. I don't see how anybody could possibly say that the federal government doesn't have a major stake in such an event.
Not to mention that this particular administration, as one of its primary objectives, has talked for 4 solid years now about making this country safer. About how, thanks to the leadership of Bush and his cronies and the work they have done, the US would fare better against a major catastrophe than we would have in the past. And they BLEW IT. In every possible way. Here is a disaster of the exact scale and scope of what they promised to protect us from, with threats of disease from contamination, no food that's fit to eat, no water that's fit to drink, possibly thousands of dead bodies, a complete breakdown of law and order because of near complete localized devestation. And they have shown that they are completely and totally unable to do much of anything effective in anything even remotely resembling an efficient manner in its wake.
This administration has talked the talk for 4 years, and when push came to shove, they couldn't walk the walk. Period. End of story.
Don't get me wrong. Local officials screwed up BIG TIME in their planning and the choices they made. To the degree that many many lives could probably have been saved and the degree of suffering lessened significantly. I'm by no means saying that all of this is because big evil King George didn't come save everybody. But I'm sick of seeing these people made into scapegoats because the local governments had about 1-2 days to deal with this storm, tops. It strengthened and came out of practically no where after being a big non-event down here in Florida. And they had to make quick decisions and nobody knew exactly what to expect other than "this is gonna be some really bad shit." They couldn't go out there and strengthen the levees overnight, and too many people realized that they needed to get out of dodge too late to be helped. All they could do was brace for the world and point people in the right direction. They did a good job with this for some (Superdome people) and a really bad job of this with a lot of others. But after that, their infrastructure was destroyed and drowned underwater. What would you like them to do then?
Not to mention that this particular administration, as one of its primary objectives, has talked for 4 solid years now about making this country safer. About how, thanks to the leadership of Bush and his cronies and the work they have done, the US would fare better against a major catastrophe than we would have in the past. And they BLEW IT. In every possible way. Here is a disaster of the exact scale and scope of what they promised to protect us from, with threats of disease from contamination, no food that's fit to eat, no water that's fit to drink, possibly thousands of dead bodies, a complete breakdown of law and order because of near complete localized devestation. And they have shown that they are completely and totally unable to do much of anything effective in anything even remotely resembling an efficient manner in its wake.
This administration has talked the talk for 4 years, and when push came to shove, they couldn't walk the walk. Period. End of story.
Don't get me wrong. Local officials screwed up BIG TIME in their planning and the choices they made. To the degree that many many lives could probably have been saved and the degree of suffering lessened significantly. I'm by no means saying that all of this is because big evil King George didn't come save everybody. But I'm sick of seeing these people made into scapegoats because the local governments had about 1-2 days to deal with this storm, tops. It strengthened and came out of practically no where after being a big non-event down here in Florida. And they had to make quick decisions and nobody knew exactly what to expect other than "this is gonna be some really bad shit." They couldn't go out there and strengthen the levees overnight, and too many people realized that they needed to get out of dodge too late to be helped. All they could do was brace for the world and point people in the right direction. They did a good job with this for some (Superdome people) and a really bad job of this with a lot of others. But after that, their infrastructure was destroyed and drowned underwater. What would you like them to do then?
MetatronM said:
"OMG QFT QTF BAA BAAA"
This is exactly what I've been thinking. When Bush went to Iraq, he was already assuring us that we, as Americans, were going to be protected and kept safe from any major catastorphe that would ever come at us. When he spent billions upon billions of dollars in Iraq/ "War for Terroism" I didn't really care, and I thought he was correct in his assumption. He seemed to believe in himself, so I did. But now, this is too much. What the fuck is he thinking waiting 5 days? What the fuck is he thinking not accepting help from other countries? He's the fucking leader of this country, or he should be. So why didn't he act like it?
November 2, 2004
by Shirley Laska,
Center for Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology
University of New Orleans
The major challenge to evacuation is the extremely limited number of evacuation routes...This problem of limited evacuation routes also plagues the rest of the delta plain of southeast and south central Louisiana.
The fact that 600,000 residents evacuated means an equal number did not. Recent evacuation surveys show that two-thirds of nonevacuees with the means to evacuate chose not to leave because they felt safe in their homes. Other nonevacuees with means relied on a cultural tradition of not leaving or were discouraged by negative experiences with past evacuations.
For those without means, the medically challenged, residents without personal transportation, and the homeless, evacuation requires significant assistance. The medically challenged often rely on life support equipment and are in such fragile states of health that they can only be moved short distances to medically equipped shelters. While a large storm-resistant structure with appropriate equipment has yet to be constructed or retrofitted, the Superdome was used to shelter nonevacuees during Ivan.
Residents who did not have personal transportation were unable to evacuate even if they wanted to. Approximately 120,000 residents (51,000 housing units x 2.4 persons/unit) do not have cars. A proposal made after the evacuation for Hurricane Georges to use public transit buses to assist in their evacuation out of the city was not implemented for Ivan. If Ivan had struck New Orleans directly it is estimated that 40-60,000 residents of the area would have perished.
Regional and national rescue resources would have to respond as rapidly as possible and would require augmentation by local private vessels (assuming some survived). And, even with this help, federal and state governments have estimated that it would take 10 days to rescue all those stranded within the city. No shelters within the city would be free of risk from rising water. Because of this threat, the American Red Cross will not open shelters in New Orleans during hurricanes greater than category 2; staffing them would put employees and volunteers at risk. For Ivan, only the Superdome was made available as a refuge of last resort for the medically challenged and the homeless.
You better believe that the local and state governments are liable. They knew the dangers ... they had the numbers. They chose to drag thier feet for 30 some years. It's amazing you crucify the Feds for being 2 or 3 days late .. but when an entire STATE is 30 years too late ... its "not their fault".
by Shirley Laska,
Center for Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology
University of New Orleans
The major challenge to evacuation is the extremely limited number of evacuation routes...This problem of limited evacuation routes also plagues the rest of the delta plain of southeast and south central Louisiana.
The fact that 600,000 residents evacuated means an equal number did not. Recent evacuation surveys show that two-thirds of nonevacuees with the means to evacuate chose not to leave because they felt safe in their homes. Other nonevacuees with means relied on a cultural tradition of not leaving or were discouraged by negative experiences with past evacuations.
For those without means, the medically challenged, residents without personal transportation, and the homeless, evacuation requires significant assistance. The medically challenged often rely on life support equipment and are in such fragile states of health that they can only be moved short distances to medically equipped shelters. While a large storm-resistant structure with appropriate equipment has yet to be constructed or retrofitted, the Superdome was used to shelter nonevacuees during Ivan.
Residents who did not have personal transportation were unable to evacuate even if they wanted to. Approximately 120,000 residents (51,000 housing units x 2.4 persons/unit) do not have cars. A proposal made after the evacuation for Hurricane Georges to use public transit buses to assist in their evacuation out of the city was not implemented for Ivan. If Ivan had struck New Orleans directly it is estimated that 40-60,000 residents of the area would have perished.
Regional and national rescue resources would have to respond as rapidly as possible and would require augmentation by local private vessels (assuming some survived). And, even with this help, federal and state governments have estimated that it would take 10 days to rescue all those stranded within the city. No shelters within the city would be free of risk from rising water. Because of this threat, the American Red Cross will not open shelters in New Orleans during hurricanes greater than category 2; staffing them would put employees and volunteers at risk. For Ivan, only the Superdome was made available as a refuge of last resort for the medically challenged and the homeless.
You better believe that the local and state governments are liable. They knew the dangers ... they had the numbers. They chose to drag thier feet for 30 some years. It's amazing you crucify the Feds for being 2 or 3 days late .. but when an entire STATE is 30 years too late ... its "not their fault".
Phoenix
Member
Onix said:
Move them to where? THe city of New Orleans lacks the mass transport ability to move 10s of thousands of people out of the city. Then there is the bigger question - evacuate them to WHERE. Suppose you had to evacuate from your city in 24 hours, where do you think your state and local officials would send you?
Nonsense. So lets say you had the ability to move 250K people out of the city by ground in 24 hours, where would you take them? You don't have a shelter plan to house that many people nor a plan to feed, clothe, and care for that many people ANYWHERE in the state. An evacuation of that level is far beyond the capability of the state, evacuations of entire cities are the responsibility of FEMA. That's why THEY have a plan for dealing with these sorts of things.
You were going to call up, stage, and transport 10s of thousands of national guard troops in the city in less than 24 hours - the time it took for it to go from a relatively harmless storm to a category 5?
Several reasons:
They are responsible for the funding fuck up that made this problem possible.
They took days to call up forces from other states. It is FEMAs job to stage in preparation for an impending disaster. If you can't deal with a disaster you see coming, how are you going to deal with a spontaneous attack on us from terrorist or another state?
They took days to mobilize federal forces once it was clear that there was a serious situation. Once it was clear that the storm would be big and coming for New Orleans, FEMA didn't organize any of its resources and stage them for going into the city.
They clearly didn't have a solid plan for an emergency that they knew was possible
Okay, I'm about to hit the hay ... so I'll have to read the above posts tomorrow.
I would like to say I retract my prior statements about the feds - I'm not going to review their successes or failures until more information is known. At that point, I'll do my arm-chair quarter backing to assign any 'blame percentages'.
... But here's my problem with this thread.
What definitely IS known right now, is that the local and state governments utterly failed in their responsibilities before the hurricane hit. These failure made the human catastrophe far worse, easily by a magnitude.
So how come they're getting a free pass here?
I would like to say I retract my prior statements about the feds - I'm not going to review their successes or failures until more information is known. At that point, I'll do my arm-chair quarter backing to assign any 'blame percentages'.
... But here's my problem with this thread.
What definitely IS known right now, is that the local and state governments utterly failed in their responsibilities before the hurricane hit. These failure made the human catastrophe far worse, easily by a magnitude.
So how come they're getting a free pass here?
Phoenix
Member
ToxicAdam said:
Its not an either or - they are ALL at fault. Any citizen of New Orleans would easily say - hey, the levee board and US Army Corps of Engineers asked for billions of dollars years ago to improve the condition of the levees so that an evacuation was not necessary, but the project was denied many times over by the FEDERAL government.
ToxicAdam said:
But the thing is that the state did know...but where are they going to get their funding from if the Federal Gov't cuts it? I do agree with the general sentiment (Baa baa etc..) that all parties are liable, but this is first and foremost a problem with the Federal Government. A disaster on this scale just simply isn't manageable by local authorities alone.
PotatoeMasher
Member
NohWun said:
"If only that were true..."
Outlaw Pro Mod
Member
[Quotes below are from Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, Commander of the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, and Chief of Engineers, and are excerpted from his remarks during
a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Special Briefing for the media via conference
call on Thursday, September 1, 2005 at 1 p.m. EDT. A full transcript is available
from the Public Affairs Office at (202) 761-0011.]
There have been suggestions that inadequate funding for levee projects
delayed their completion and resulted in the flooding of New Orleans.
GEN. STROCK: "In fact, the levee failures we saw were in areas of the projects
that were at their full project design... So that part of the project was in place, and
had this project been fully complete ... [West Bank, Southeast Louisiana, and
Lake Ponchartrain] it's my opinion, based on the intensity of this storm, that the
flooding of the Central Business District and the French Quarter would still have
occurred. So I do not see that the level of funding is really a contributing factor in
this case."
Xenon said:
And that falls DIRECTLY on the local government. I've been through 3 hurricane evacs and they've all been handled locally. This is a situation of cry wolf. Nobody expected it to be as bad as it was... but in reality they had at least 24 hours to use those buses to get people out of the greater NO area.
But nevermind that GAF just blame republicans for all the country's faults. And don't fret because now that Sean Penn is there everyone is safe. Oh and Bush hates poor people.
http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=100857&format=text
Guys, we've got this all wrong. For a guy who had to be forced to resign from his position as a guy who oversaw horse shows, Brown HAS been doing a heck of a job.
Guys, we've got this all wrong. For a guy who had to be forced to resign from his position as a guy who oversaw horse shows, Brown HAS been doing a heck of a job.
- Status
Similar threads
- Poll