Local Response Before the Storm . . .

conjur

No Lifer
Jun 7, 2001
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Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
How Local Officials Prepared for Katrina

What more do you think was their job ? They gave it a huge effort.

Read and heed - no excuses.
But...but...but...


And with Brownie's "heck of a job" and the thread I posted showing Chertoff fumbled and bumbled and the whole White House has ignored, apparently, the National Response Plan and it becomes obvious who's the responsible party for leaving tens of thousands stranded for days.
 

EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
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Oct 30, 2000
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The plan called for the parish authorities to be able to provide for themselves for the first 48 to 60 hours after the storm hit. After that, FEMA would be up and running.

In the final conference call before the storm, a FEMA representative assures the parish presidents that resources are pre-staged; they just need 48 to 60 hours to get things out to everybody.


Seems like the execution of the plan was on track. The storm and the media just made it worse.

The locals were "swamped", aggrevating the ability of FEMA to help.

Seems like the local FEMA was prepared; with a possible breakdown in information flow at the top.
 

conjur

No Lifer
Jun 7, 2001
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Originally posted by: EagleKeeper
The plan called for the parish authorities to be able to provide for themselves for the first 48 to 60 hours after the storm hit. After that, FEMA would be up and running.
Which gets us to Wed. morning/evening and is in line with what Mayor Nagin said on Meet The Press on Sunday.

However
In the final conference call before the storm, a FEMA representative assures the parish presidents that resources are pre-staged; they just need 48 to 60 hours to get things out to everybody.
Seems like the execution of the plan was on track. The storm and the media just made is worse.

The locals were "swamped", aggrevating the ability of FEMA to help.

Seems like the local FEMA was prepared; with a possible breakdown in information flow at the top.
Except it wasn't. Help didn't arrive in force until SATURDAY, 120 hours later.

edit: "local" FEMA? What's "local" about FEMA. FEMA is FEMA. It's the Feds. They knew this storm could be that fictional "Hurricane Pam" that had been feared. Why the delay? Well, we know a lot more now with the Chertoff memo revealed.
 

EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
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Oct 30, 2000
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FEMA is the Feds - agreeded.
However there are local district offices before the buerocracy kicks in, similar to the federal court system.

Districts know what is going on and who is in charge within the local governments. They work hand in hand with these people. They have the knwolodge and the resources available.

The problem occurs when the pyramid of bullsh1t starts to kick in.

Whether or not is was intended, the current federal government has become paranoid of sticking their necks out without a multiitude of meetings and blessing from the bosses.

In the meantime, the people that have the ability to swing into action are being held at the gate and their planning and experience is wasted.


Bash the management with great pleasure - they screwed up royally;

However credit the local Federal government agencies for being prepared and ready to assist when authorized.

The Homeland Security people in the area and those with previous experience were already mobilizing. The Defense department mobilizing (that takes much longer) and FEMA was on the ground at their staging areas waiting for the word go.



It is best to attempt to seperate the chiefs from the warriors when attaching blame labels and finger pointing. Documents are showing that the chiefs delayed; why will only be determined and problably be a CYA situation and/or payoff. Paragraph #4 is the expanation that may not see the light of day.
 

Darkhawk28

Diamond Member
Dec 22, 2000
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Originally posted by: EagleKeeper
FEMA is the Feds - agreeded.
However there are local district offices before the buerocracy kicks in, similar to the federal court system.

Districts know what is going on and who is in charge within the local governments. They work hand in hand with these people. They have the knwolodge and the resources available.

The problem occurs when the pyramid of bullsh1t starts to kick in.

Whether or not is was intended, the current federal government has become paranoid of sticking their necks out without a multiitude of meetings and blessing from the bosses.

In the meantime, the people that have the ability to swing into action are being held at the gate and their planning and experience is wasted.


Bash the management with great pleasure - they screwed up royally;

However credit the local Federal government agencies for being prepared and ready to assist when authorized.

The Homeland Security people in the area and those with previous experience were already mobilizing. The Defense department mobilizing (that takes much longer) and FEMA was on the ground at their staging areas waiting for the word go.



It is best to attempt to seperate the chiefs from the warriors when attaching blame labels and finger pointing. Documents are showing that the chiefs delayed; why will only be determined and problably be a CYA situation and/or payoff. Paragraph #4 is the expanation that may not see the light of day.

I agree, just like the Iraq war, we shouldn't confuse the war with the warrior.

I don't like the war, I don't blame the soldier.

I don't like the way the administration handled the Katrina crisis, but I don't blame the FEMA workers, Red Cross, etc.
 

conjur

No Lifer
Jun 7, 2001
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But the local districts aren't big enough to handle N.O. being flooded. The big boys knew this but did nothing for days while they played with their wangs.

Clinton got FEMA revamped to take action decisively. Bush gutted that and added a layer of bureaucracy. It was his responsibility to be sure FEMA could still do its job. He wants metrics? Make him have FEMA perform regular drills (esp. in the light of last year's number of hurricanes) and report the results. Why the need for a Katrina Task Force when there's already the National Response Plan?
 
Sep 12, 2004
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I've asked in another thread for someone to demonstrate where FEMA's response has ever been better, considering similar circumstances. All I got was crickets.

And people were screaming "Where's FEMA? Where's FEMA?" long before the 60 hours that the local contingencies supposedly addressed were up. Not to mention that the article fails to address why Nagin waited so long to issue a mandatory evacuation, why he didn't properly follow his own emergency plans, and also fails to note that Bush had to urge Blanco on the evacuation order as well (but it sure doesn't fail to note that Bush issued a state of emergency "on Blanco's request." Well, duh! She has to request it in order to get Bush to issue the order. He cannot do it otherwise.).

Nicely one-sided article that tries to highlight what they did do while completely neglecting what they didn't do.
 

conjur

No Lifer
Jun 7, 2001
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Hey, TrollsLikeChicken is back with more disinformation. Nagin followed the city's emergency plan exactly as it's spelled out. He issued a mandatory evacuation (the first EVER in the city's history) on Sunday morning and had been urging people to leave the city all weekend. Also, there is ZERO, I repeat ZERO proof that the President urged the locals to declare states of emergency. In fact, the opposite appears to be true.

And, when the President was told "give us everything you've got" by Gov. Blanco, what did he do? He went to bed to prepare for a photo-op speech in San Diego the next day.
 
Sep 12, 2004
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Originally posted by: conjur
Hey, TrollsLikeChicken is back with more disinformation. Nagin followed the city's emergency plan exactly as it's spelled out. He issued a mandatory evacuation (the first EVER in the city's history) on Sunday morning and had been urging people to leave the city all weekend. Also, there is ZERO, I repeat ZERO proof that the President urged the locals to declare states of emergency. In fact, the opposite appears to be true.

And, when the President was told "give us everything you've got" by Gov. Blanco, what did he do? He went to bed to prepare for a photo-op speech in San Diego the next day.

Ooh, look. Guess who is trying to pull another conjob on everyone? If Nagin followed the city's Emergency Plan exactly as it's spelled out then why this?

From the plan:

The safe evacuation of threatened populations when endangered by a major catastrophic event is one of the principle reasons for developing a Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. The thorough identification of at-risk populations, transportation and sheltering resources, evacuation routes and potential bottlenecks and choke points, and the establishment of the management team that will coordinate not only the evacuation but which will monitor and direct the sheltering and return of affected populations, are the primary tasks of evacuation planning. Due to the geography of New Orleans and the varying scales of potential disasters and their resulting emergency evacuations, different plans are in place for small-scale evacuations and for citywide relocations of whole populations.
Authority to issue evacuations of elements of the population is vested in the Mayor. By Executive Order, the chief elected official, the Mayor of the City of New Orleans, has the authority to order the evacuation of residents threatened by an approaching hurricane.

Evacuation procedures for special needs persons with either physical or mental handicaps, including registration of disabled persons, is covered in the SOP for Evacuation of Special Needs Persons.
Nagin did none of that, instead merely shuffling some people to the Superdome.

Besides that, I never said the President urged the locals to "declare a state of emergency." I said Bush urged Blanco to start the evacuation.
 

conjur

No Lifer
Jun 7, 2001
58,686
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He got people to a safe shelter which is what the plan calls for. The plan does not call for the city, itself, clearing everyone out of the city. Stop reaching.
 

outriding

Diamond Member
Feb 20, 2002
4,402
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Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
I've asked in another thread for someone to demonstrate where FEMA's response has ever been better, considering similar circumstances. All I got was crickets.

Urban Search & Rescue Deployment
Oklahoma City bombing, 1995

Within five hours of the blast the first FEMA urban search-and-rescue task force was deployed.

Urban Search & Rescue Deployment
Humberto Vidal Building Explosion, 1996

Within hours one of FEMA's urban search-and-rescue (US&R) task forces was deployed to the scene to help search for survivors of the deadly blast

So tell me why was a foreign country was able to get help faster than we could provide for our own citizens in the US ?

Link

FEMA Rolls Out $6 Million New Truck Program To Enhance Disaster Response --February 21, 2005




 

CaptnKirk

Lifer
Jul 25, 2002
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Had Bush or his designated sycophants bothered to watch the News for about a week, or actually taken themselves out of the filter mode
they would have know what the country and the world knew for the 72 hours leading into the storm . . and the immediate 72 hours after.

New Orleans had taken a direct hit and was destroyed and was crying for help.

Bush had been personally breifed by the National Hurricane Director IN A TELECONFERENCE just before it hit
- of the severity of the approaching storm.

Uncurious George wasn't interested, and his sycophants didn't have the courage to tell him anything he didn't want to hear.
They had to make a DVD for him to watch - as AirForce One flew East so he could view the damage.

Odd how he's willing to take responsibility for the Governments organizational failure, but not his own personal failure.
Passing the Buck . . Hey, let me look at that Buck . . Um huh, OK, yep - not mine, here FEMA try this on for size, it's a suppository.

Got Tax Cuts ? Lott needs a new mansion, poor baby.
Tax Releif for the Millionares, balanced on the back of a drown city.
 

EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
Staff member
Oct 30, 2000
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Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
...didn't have the courage to tell him anything he didn't want to hear.

Key words within any organization.

Fill it with yes men and unless the top dog has the ability to micromanage, nothing will happen.

 

CaptnKirk

Lifer
Jul 25, 2002
10,053
0
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Originally posted by: EagleKeeper
Originally posted by: CaptnKirk...didn't have the courage to tell him anything he didn't want to hear.

Key words within any organization.

Fill it with yes men and unless the top dog has the ability to micromanage, nothing will happen.

Classic MBA Business Model failure. You can't run a Government with the same mind-set that you run a business.
Unless the intent is to deliberately run it into the ground . . or have a train wreck.

 

BBond

Diamond Member
Oct 3, 2004
8,363
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Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
Originally posted by: EagleKeeper
Originally posted by: CaptnKirk...didn't have the courage to tell him anything he didn't want to hear.

Key words within any organization.

Fill it with yes men and unless the top dog has the ability to micromanage, nothing will happen.

Classic MBA Business Model failure. You can't run a Government with the same mind-set that you run a business.
Unless the intent is to deliberately run it into the ground . . or have a train wreck.

That is PRECISELY Bush's intent.

Starve-the-beast

 

slyedog

Senior member
Jan 12, 2001
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no matter what bush did or didnot do, these libs will always blame it on him. and they really know nothing about what is going on down here except what they see on cnn. but they want you to beleive that blanco and nagin did nothing wrong. when it all comes out, they will have a lot of turkey to chew. and nagin and blanco had better get some cransberry sauce to help it go down.
 

Darkhawk28

Diamond Member
Dec 22, 2000
6,759
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Originally posted by: slyedog
no matter what bush did or didnot do, these libs will always blame it on him. and they really know nothing about what is going on down here except what they see on cnn. but they want you to beleive that blanco and nagin did nothing wrong. when it all comes out, they will have a lot of turkey to chew. and nagin and blanco had better get some cransberry sauce to help it go down.

Sorry, but the more and more that comes out, it makes the FEMA and the rest of the federal government look really bad. But you just keep your horse blinders on.
 
Sep 12, 2004
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Originally posted by: outriding
Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
I've asked in another thread for someone to demonstrate where FEMA's response has ever been better, considering similar circumstances. All I got was crickets.

Urban Search & Rescue Deployment
Oklahoma City bombing, 1995

Within five hours of the blast the first FEMA urban search-and-rescue task force was deployed.

Urban Search & Rescue Deployment
Humberto Vidal Building Explosion, 1996

Within hours one of FEMA's urban search-and-rescue (US&R) task forces was deployed to the scene to help search for survivors of the deadly blast

So tell me why was a foreign country was able to get help faster than we could provide for our own citizens in the US ?

Link

FEMA Rolls Out $6 Million New Truck Program To Enhance Disaster Response --February 21, 2005
Did you miss this part?

"considering similar circumstances"

A building being bombed is not quite the same as widespread destruction and flooding. In fact, the only FEMA response to something similar was to hurricane Floyd in 1999, when levees broke and widespread flooding occured. This occured under the watch of Clinton's buddy Witt, who supposedly "improved" FEMA. After 3 weeks they were finally getting some aid into the area.

http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_2726662.shtml

Bill and Hillary Clinton's Mythical FEMA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Jim Kouri
Sep 10, 2005

Senator Hillary Clinton is continuing the noble endeavor of revising the record of her loving husband's eight years in the Oval Office, even if it means exploiting Hurricane Katrina's devastation to do it. Senator Clinton creates a mythical picture of FEMA under her husband's leadership and her comrades in the mainstream news media run with it.

While making the rounds of the network morning shows, she's been very hard on the Federal Emergency Management Administration and, of course, the Bush Administration. She went as far as complaining that Bush damaged "Bill's FEMA." Naturally, the mainstream media are too lazy to investigate her politically-charged exploitation of Katrina to not only revise her hubby's legacy, but also to score brownie points as she eyes a 2008 presidential run.

I'm giving the mainstream media the benefit of the doubt when I say they're too lazy to investigate Hillary's bogus claim that FEMA was heaven on earth when good old Bill was in-charge. One can make a case that the MSM want to assist Senator Clinton in revising the Clinton Legacy while helping Hillary with her upcoming presidential campaign. But, Madam Senator, what about FEMA's response to Hurricane Floyd? You remember Floyd, don't you?

On Sept. 15, 1999, Mother Nature poised herself to deliver the second in a one-two punch combination of hurricanes to hit North Carolina. Earlier, Hurricane Dennis jabbed once at the Carolina coast before doubling back and coming ashore as Tropical Storm Dennis on Sept. 5, packing torrential rains and 70 mile-per-hour winds. Then came the knockout punch?Hurricane Floyd?ten days later.

Floyd was a large and intense Cape Verde hurricane that pounded the central and northern Bahama islands, seriously threatened Florida, struck the coast of North Carolina and moved up the United States east coast into New England. It neared the threshold of category five intensity on the Saffir/Simpson Hurricane Scale as it approached the Bahamas, and produced a flood disaster of immense proportions in the eastern United States, particularly in North Carolina.

There were 56 deaths that were directly attributable to Floyd. The death toll by state is as follows: North Carolina 35, Pennsylvania 6, New Jersey 6, Virginia 3, Delaware 2, New York 2, Connecticut 1, and Vermont 1. Most of these deaths were due to drowning in freshwater flooding. Floyd was the deadliest hurricane in the United States since Agnes of 1972. According to information provided to the Federal Emergency Management Administration, over 2 million people were evacuated due to Floyd. This was probably the largest evacuation in US history. And it was achieved by state and local government officials. (Hear that, Governor Blanco?)

FEMA didn't do much better under much less taxing conditions during Floyd than it did during Hurricane Katrina, when the floods that followed Hurricane Floyd left tens of thousands stranded up and down the Eastern seaboard wondering what happened to federal rescuers. Where's Bill Clinton's FEMA?

According to Newsmax.Com, Clinton FEMA Director James Lee Witt won high marks for hurricane preparation, but the flood that followed swamped his agency. A full three weeks after the storm had passed, Rev. Jesse Jackson interviewed Witt on his CNN show "Both Sides Now" -- and complained that flood victims were still suffering from a "misery index."

"It seemed there was preparation for Hurricane Floyd, but then came Flood Floyd," Jackson began. "Bridges are overwhelmed, levees (my emphasis) are overwhelmed, whole town's under water (my emphasis). . . [it's] an awesome scene of tragedy. So there's a great misery index in North Carolina."

When Jackson asked what was being done for the thousands of families left homeless by Floyd after nearly a month had passed since the storm first hit, Witt said Bill's FEMA was "just beginning to address the problem."

While Witt's reputation remained largely intact after the Floyd fiasco, more than a few of the storm's thousands of flood victims complained that the agency had failed them, according to Carl Limbacher of Newmax. Witt and Clinton were so successful -- with the help of the MSM -- in escaping widespread criticism in the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd, that Louisiana's competency-deficient Governor Blanco appointed Witt to head her own emergency operations. The MSM breathlessly announced the appointment and that was the last time anyone's heard about Bill Clinton's FEMA boss.

Another criticism by Hillary's comrades in the Democrat Party and by her pals in the news media is that President Bush staffed FEMA with his cronies such as Mike Brown. But no one in the memory-impaired news media appears to remember Bill Clinton's cronies including Buddy Young.

Raymond Lloyd "Buddy" Young was appointed FEMA's Director of Region VI by President Clinton in 1993. As regional director, he coordinated FEMA mitigation, preparedness and disaster response and recovery activities in: Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. In 1997, he served as Acting Deputy Director for the agency. Mr. Young is a veteran of 26 years of service for the Arkansas State Police. He joined FEMA after serving as director of security for then-Governor Bill Clinton, a post he had held since 1983. In other words, Young's experience entailed covering for Bill during his alleged trysts. His education consists of a certificate in public administration from the University of Arkansas. No college degrees and no emergency management experience (unless his yelling, "Bill, quick zip your fly. Hillary's coming!" constitutes managing an emergency).

Cronies? The Clintons were the king and queen of cronyism. Remember their Chief of White House Personnel Security Craig "where the hell did those FBI files come from" Livingstone? His security experience entailed work as a bouncer at strip clubs and discos. I can only surmise why Bill Clinton felt obligated to a man with those security credentials.

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police.
 
Sep 12, 2004
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mikeford

Diamond Member
Jan 27, 2001
5,671
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How many people did the mayor kill when he sent them to the convention center with no supplies of any kind since it wasn't part of the disaster plan, and then didn't tell FEMA or anybody else that could have helped them about it for days?

I find it pretty hard to believe anybody on this forum is stupid enough to swallow these onesided rants.