The Federal Government and Katrina: Incompetent?

[knottyfox]

I almost didn't log on to Scouter tonight but thought it would be fun and relaxing. Wrong again! Keep in mind that we are supposed to be "Scouters"! Blasting ugly statements about the fine and decent people of New Orleans and Louisianians not to mention the other states that fell victom to Katrina, does not fit any of the Scout Law or Oath that I have read. Perhaps I am reading an outdated Boy Scout Manual...

I would like to thank lasteagle83 and Bobwhite for their posts. Your posts better represented reality than others. Thanks!

It is so easy to sit and judge from afar. I would like to extend an invitation to the critics to leave everything they have behind and join me in South Louisiana. See what I see, hear what I hear! Please feel free to come over for Dinner then we can walk 2 blocks North of my house or 6 blocks South East of my house and visit first hand with the people you speak so ugly about. They are available to visit, in fact they would love the company. You see these folks are staying in local schools as evacuees. They will offer you a different story than the few you hear and see on the news. Thousands and Thousands of people evacuated! Longest stretch of Parking lot I have ever seen! I10 South bound and West bound were full of people trying to evacuate! Mile after mile. It took folks 6+ hours to drive the 65 miles to get here.

I did not evacuate. I was not in an evacuation area. I lost a tree during the storm. Was I stupid for staying or should I have fled for Canada? What about a fellow that lives 10 miles north of here that died when a tree crashed through his house and landed on him? Was he stupid?

On my way home today from work, I work 33miles from my house down the Mississippi river towards New Orleans, I was listening to National Public Radio (NPR). I had lots of time to listen as traffic is now so terrible that it takes me between 2 to 2.5 hours to get home!! By the way, did you know that Baton Rouge is now the largest city in Louisiana by population? Baton Rouge's infrastructure was not ready for this! I blame McArthur, Fema, Local/State/Fed authorities for my inconvenience! Any how, the NPR reporter was visiting with a New Orleans Resident via Telephone today asking why they were still there. The Mayor of New Orleans stated today to get out as the flood waters are badly contaminated! Well...The person on the other end of the phone stated that she and her friends were staying put! They are staying in a bar room and have plenty of liquor she was proud to report! She continued with some of the dumbest statements I ever heard! She wrapped up the interview by saying that she had to get off of the phone due to it being a business phone and all! ???????? Can you believe this? What a fool! I believe this person is not wrapped tight! Problem is that so many other folks hear this and stereo type everyone else as a drunken fool in New Orleans! Please don't let the smaller groups depict what you think of the tens of thousands of great people from New Orleans. Please don't dishonor our dead from the statements of a few! When I speak of our dead, I mean our! These fine people were citizens of the greatest country in the world! They were United States citizens!

Please feel free to blast away at me and send hate mail. I do ask that you remember we are scouters!! The invitation stands, you are welcome to come and help and be part of the solution! I have room!

Knotty Fox

[packsaddle]

I guess that it was my remark that got Kahuna started on this thread. So my first action is to apologize if my remark seemed intemperate. I had just witnessed what I thought had been the death of a young girl crushed under the wheel of a vehicle (she's going to recover, thankfully) and I was powerless to prevent it. I was in a bad mood. Sorry.

 

First, New Orleans will be rebuilt but it will never be the same. This is partly because we MUST have some kind of base for control of shipping and transportation near the mouth of the Mississippi. Also because the marketplace will demand it.

 

However, (and knottyfox already knows my feelings on this) I am quite sensitive to the fact that many thousands of good people have suffered and died from Katrina and more deaths are likely to follow. I have some private advice for anyone who thinks they somehow asked for or deserved this fate. Suffice it to say that if you hold that view, you join the others that slither out of holes at times like this:

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/9/22005b.asp

 

http://www.godhatesfags.com/featured/20050831_thank-god-for-katrina.html

 

http://www.alternet.org/story/24878/

 

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3338642

 

My sentiment is increasingly shared by other conservative persons: "Almost every Republican I have spoken with is disappointed..." "He is a strong president . . . but he has never really focused on the importance of good execution. I think that is true in many parts of his presidency." This from William Kristol, a conservative columnist with close ties to the White House and the Bush administration.

 

"...never really focused on the importance of good execution." Really! Iraq hardly offers evidence to the contrary. But what about the response to Katrina?

 

Part of the answer to this question depends on what happened prior to the storm. We know that long before this storm, FEMA had studied potential disasters and listed three really big ones as the worst - terrorism in NY, San Francisco, and a hurricane hitting New Orleans. The local and state officials had long known about the danger lurking behind the levees and had worked to secure improvements. Projects were proposed but funding was either denied or decreased by an administration bent on tax cuts and the war in Iraq. I know this personally because I have worked on projects that have stalled or ended because funding promised has been terminated. That trail leads to Iraq as well.

At the same time, the administration has populated itself with political cronies and contributors some of whom have little, if any, qualifications. FEMA director Michael Brown, of all persons, is the poster child for this cronyism. All of us have watched him claim to be the last to know about thousands of stranded persons here and there, as if to excuse his lack of leadership. His previous experience to direct FEMA? Managing horse shows. Prior to FEMA he spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders' and horse-show organization based in Colorado. He was asked to resign because of alleged supervision failures.

But previous FEMA director Joseph Allbaugh (Bush's former national campaign manager) came to the rescue and recommended Brown for the FEMA job. Allbaugh was Brown's old college roommate. "He's a good ole boy, you know what I mean?"

 

The result was not a crisp demonstration of efficient emergency response, it was rather an extended exercise of fingerpointing and arguments over division of authority. While people died. It continues.

 

While these good people were dying: The USS Bataan sat off the Gulf coast, well-supplied with water, other supplies and well-equipped medical facilities. It sat there waiting for orders.

While these good people were dying: WalMart tried to deliver truckloads of water to Jefferson Parrish. FEMA turned them away. No wonder Aaron Broussard's passion on 'Meet the Press' a few days ago! My heart goes out to him and all those people.

 

Bush's response? See the website: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101329,00.html

 

He didn't think anyone expected the problems with the levees.

He praised Brown, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

 

And most importantly, Bush promised to rebuild Trent Lott's house. "Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house--he's lost his entire house...there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."

 

OK, perhaps incompetence is not the correct term. Thinking...maybe some of the thousands of survivors could supply a better one. At least they were lucky enough to survive.

[packsaddle]

But I'll bet you'll never see many of THEM sitting on Trent Lott's porch. (This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[madkins007]

Fixing what went wrong will be an important task over the next few months or years... but you can pretty much bet that our system of government will find some way to muck it up again. Wasn't FEMA created after some similar snafus after a major catastrophe?

 

What fascinates me is that for the last several years, many organizations have been BEGGING us to prepare for a personal emergency- from the Mormon teaching about prepareness to the BSA to the Red Cross to FEMA and many others.

 

How many of us have REALLY listened or done anything?

 

Show of hands... how many of us have any of these PRE-PACKED and ready for an instant's need?

1.) Family rendevous plans on several levels- just outside the house, outside the neighborhood, and outside the region?

2.) A series of reliable emergency contact numbers (nearby (like a neighbor), local, and further away- that are updated and carried in a way that a rescuer can easily find? (in your wallet, under ICE on a cell phone, etc.)

3.) 'Quick grab' emergency bags designed to last each person for at least a day.

4.) Fire safety stuff in place- good fire alarms, extinguisher, escape routes, meeting place, and drills.

5.) Emergency supply of food, water, and money.

6.) Basic car emergency kit.

7.) Good radio, flashlights, and batteries (or other power source).

 

Yeah- as Scouters, we have a bunch of useful stuff scattered in our houses, but if a fire, flood, tornado, etc. forced you out of your house with only minutes of warning, what would most of US do? (And, just out of morbid curiosity, how many of us in flood zones store a lot of this stuff in the basement? I keep hearing about people trapped in attics in the flooding and I wonder what *I* would have been able to do in their situation.)

 

I'm guilty. I read this stuff with a passion, but don't do most of it- even though most of these groups talk about how useful a basic stockpile would be in a wide variety of emergencies. A week's supply of safely stored food, for example, would come in real handy when the paycheck just does not quite cover groceries this week. The water supply could be a lifesaver in a fairly minor plumbing crisis. Locally, the lights have gone out for more than 5 hours on several occasions in the last few years. A decent supply of emergency lighting and batteries, and our camping cook sets have been very useful in those situations.

 

So- if any part of this disaster is that individuals did not respond well in some way, are we any more ready?

[jkhny]

"Incompetence would mean rushing to the wrong city in a different state, unless that is the reason they were so late."

 

Like telling Charleston SOUTH CAROLINA to expect a plane full of people needing medical attention.......and leaving that city's ambulances, hospitals and MD's on standby while the plane lands in Charleston WEST VIRGINIA?

 

FEMA has been gutted and filled with incompetent political appointees. Sometimes Bureaucracies are better run by bureaucrats instead of Arabian Horse breeders.

 

EVERYONE knew there were issues with levees in N.O. Yet the $40 million allocated years ago for work was defunded (while the new highway bill allocates over $200 million for a bridge to nowhere in Alaska). Years back - BEFORE 9./11 - the three biggest "catastrophes" that could be expected in the US were defined as 1) SF earthquake, 2) NY terrorist attack and 3) New Orleans Hurricane. So much for "Be Prepared".

 

The Netherlands has coped with a situation as "problematic" if not MORE so than New Orleans for the last 50 years. The floods from storms in 1953 resulted in a comprehensive effort to MAKE SURE this problem would NOT happen again.

 

I sure hope we don't see a major terrorist attack in NY or SF earthquake. "Planning" seems to be a real weakness with our current government.

 

Anyone else find it odd that the 82nd Airborne is in MS and LA while the MSNG and LANG is in Iraq? Seems kinda backwards.

[frankj]

When the problem reaches certain economic proportions, the federal government steps in with its checkbook. A few examples are the bailout of Chrysler (they repaid the debt as I recall) the bailout of New York City when they faced bankruptcy, the S&L crisis and there may be other, lesser examples. On the heels of the criticism "you (the feds) didn't do enough to help" will come the demand, "you have to help pay for the rebuild."

 

To those who are the most critical of the federal response and say they should have done things to prevent the disaster -- and this is not aimed at thread participants, I say be careful what you wish for, you may get it.

 

Which federal response is more logical? (1) make loans available to rebuild the city for about the same population as it was, or, (2) use the power of eminent domain to acquire land and create either (a) a shipping and industrial base on a much smaller footprint with limited population, or (b) return the whole thing to nature in the form of an estuary.

 

It may sound far fetched but if the feds are called on to help make sure that such a disaster does not happen again with the human toll, then the federal "help" I've mentioned might just be offered.

 

[Greying Beaver]

I heard on the radio news that during the hurricane the NOPD's radio network (main tower?)went down. No communication? No way for the PD to give or receive information. They were having to relay messages using battery-powered short-range radios. And that was before the levies gave way. It was a very spippery slope for the NOPD. All PD's have simialiar communications set-ups and networks

That NOPD officers went over the hill is most unfortunate. They have families, too. If they left to get their families to safe ground and returned that is another thing.

But what really cooked my supper was the report of the President asking the Governor of Louisiana to release national guard units to his (federal) authority. She asked for 24 hours to "think about it". That was Wednesday, two days after the levies broke. It delayed national guard units arriving by 24 hours. The President should have federalized the national guard units on the spot, if not as soon as he got word of the flooding.

FEMA is another story all together. They were not aware of information being shown on television from helicopters with cameras in them! What, they don't watch television news?! Here in "West New Orleans" the evacuees were sent from one office located in one building to another office located in another building not necessarily close by for whatever services. The mayor of "West New Orleans" asked the owners of a recently shut-down mega-store if the owners would lease the store to give FEMA a central location for all their operations. The owners of the property refused, so the mayor commandeered the property on the spot, no compensation to the owners. Good on him!

The bi-lateral congressional committee that is going to investigate the problems might make for some good television.