New Orleans

[susiedriver]

Speed,

Read this (dated Oct 2001):
Scientific American: Drowning New Orleans [ CIVIL ENGINEERING ]A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana can save the city


And This, Washing Away :
http://www.nola.com/washingaway/


The point is, this came as a suprise to no one. Homeland Security & FEMA blew it, big time. Speaking of 'big time', where is our Vice President? Anyone seen or heard from him?

 

[wkmac]

From what I'm seeing and reading it appears the pre-Katrina alarms had been sounded but sadly none of us were listening.

 

[ok2bclever]

sendagain, gee, I don't know, with all the thousands of now homeless people in the south, probably something different than we will make sure this one rich millionaire's house and property gets rebuilt so he and bush can enjoy sitting on the porch.

Just a thought.

That is If he actually said that.

If he said that it is either incredibly stupid or just unwise depending on the context in which it was said.

I haven't been able to find any reference to that statement beyond susie mentioning it though.

susie, do you have a reference link?

Every quote I have seen has been pretty decent and expected other than the pretty dumb sounding one of "if you don't need gas, don't buy it".

speed, yes, we SHOULD be criticizing.

People, our people are suffering and dying down there far beyond what they should have been.

It doesn't take an expert to know that this situation was not handled well.

If an invasion force hit our eastern seaboard and we had several days notice that it was going to happen, even a very very good idea of what city would be the breach point and we had knowledgeable studies on the immediate and tragic damage that the city would experience (and we knew this days in advance),do you think it would have taken several days after the day of the attack for our National Guard forces to head that direction?!?

Would you say, well I am sure there are reasons and considerations beyond our knowledge as we are not experts so it's ok that I can see some of my family, friends and fellow citizens are suffering and dying there because at least the news managed to get down there in time.

This was bungled, pure and simple.

tie may actually have a point, but then we certainly need to reassess the bureaucracy of the mechanism if that was a factor.

It's still no excuse.

Still, the most important point is to fix the problem and learn from it.

 

[nevadapaul]

He said it yesterday during an interview on CNBC when he was in Mississippi. I was watching the telly at the time.

 

[susiedriver]

ok2b,
You can always check the Whitehouse for transcripts of any speach Dear Leader gives.

Here's the speach in question, about a paragraph before he says what a great job "Brownie" is doing.
I won't bother to tell you what Brown did before FEMA, you wouldn't believe me.

 

[crappie]

yes President Bush did say that on CNN,about wanting to rebuild trent lochs house so he could sit on the front porch .He was trying to be funny and it came across wrong.

 

[ok2bclever]

Thanks susie.

Well, that explains it.

If you listen to it in context he was throwing in a lighthearted chummy remark to a fellow millionaire and he wasn't thinking in terms of it being heard by the thousands of regular and poor people who have lost everything they owned, not just a small, inconvenient portion of their portfolio.

Sheesh, back to it was an incredibly stupid, ignorant and callous thing to say and somebody needs to either fire his scriptwriters or tell him to quit adlibbing as he is terrible at it.


On another note:

the decision to make FEMA a part of the Department of Homeland Security, created after the September 11, 2001 attacks, was a major mistake. Rubin said FEMA functioned well in the 1990s as a small, independent agency.

"Under DHS (Department of Homeland Security), it was downgraded (FEMA), buried in a couple of layers of bureaucracy, and terrorism prevention got all the attention and most of the funds," she said.

Perhaps the results would have been far better if the hurricane had been named Osama Big Winda rather than a homey English name like Katrina.

 

[susiedriver]

From the Homeland security web site:
Emergencies & Disasters
Preparing America

In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. The new Department will also prioritize the important issue of citizen preparedness. Educating America's families on how best to prepare their homes for a disaster and tips for citizens on how to respond in a crisis will be given special attention at DHS.


FEMA powers:
Here are some of the actions FEMA can take in emergency situations, as authorized by Presidential executive orders:

* allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.
* allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
* allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.
* allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.
* allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
* allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.
* allows to designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.
* allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
* allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned if contaminated beyond reasonable means of decontamination, and establish new locations for populations.
* allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.
* allows them to specify the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.
* allows them to grant authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.
* allows them to assign emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.
* allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of the nation.

 

[susiedriver]

ok2b,
Guess this wasn't the time for Dear Leader to joke, heh?

Wasn't it BushCo's idea to roll FEMA into the DHS? Have you read up on "Brownie" yet?

 

[susiedriver]

Brown and Chertoff should be asked to resign. They aren't up to the task, IMO.

 

[tieguy]

"I disagree. We should be very critical of the way this has been handled. This was our best response to a disaster that we had time to prepare for."

your kidding right? Your assumption would state that we had at most 3 days to prepare before this storm hit. You would assume we knew for sure where it was going to hit because hurricanes never change course. Your assumption would state that we spent time planning how strong the storm would be, what roads would be damaged, what buildings taken down. Which levees would break. And then where we could store supplies that the storm would not destroy? No in all fairness no one can plan for a storm like this one. How many of this intensity hitting an urban area below sea level have you seen?

 

[tieguy]

by the way crappie should be happy we have a convoy of supplies leaving the dc area tommorrow with state police escort.

 

[tieguy]

"Sheesh, back to it was an incredibly stupid, ignorant and callous thing to say and somebody needs to either fire his scriptwriters or tell him to quit adlibbing as he is terrible at it. "

Perhaps. Or perhaps we just have to have the sense to differentiate between bush making a joke and bush making an official announcement.

 

[crappie]

cool I will watch for it .go big brown.

 

[worldwide]

Prior to joining FEMA, Mr. Brown practiced law in Colorado and Oklahoma, where he served as a bar examiner on ethics and professional responsibility for the Oklahoma Supreme Court and as a hearing examiner for the Colorado Supreme Court. He had been appointed as a special prosecutor in police disciplinary matters. While attending law school he was appointed by the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee of the Oklahoma Legislature as the Finance Committee Staff Director, where he oversaw state fiscal issues. His background in state and local government also includes serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight and as a city councilman.

As the head of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Under Secretary Brown leads federal disaster response and recovery operations and coordinates disaster activities with more than two dozen federal agencies and departments and the American Red Cross. He also oversees the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration, and initiates proactive mitigation activities.

Great credentials...

 

[ok2bclever]

Yeah bush refers to him as brownie (how affectionate) in a public interview and stated he was doing a great job (one thing you can say about bush is he is big into denying reality when it comes to loyalty no matter how incompetent or how much it costs the country if you are one of HIS, just look at rumsfield), a former ethics lawyer and he also ran something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didnt know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.

He makes me warm and fuzzy thinking he is what is standing between us and terrorists.

 

[tieguy]

Bush has also been very vocal in saying that the relief effort has been inadequate.

 

[moreluck]

Q. Canada....3 warships full of supplies !!
Thanks, neighbors to the North!

 

[susiedriver]

From the Boston Herald:

"Brown - formerly an estates and family lawyer - this week has has made several shocking public admissions, including interviews where he suggested FEMA was unaware of the misery and desperation of refugees stranded at the New Orleans convention center.
Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Brown 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.
``We do disciplinary actions, certification of (show trial) judges. We hold classes to train people to become judges and stewards. And we keep records,'' explained a spokeswoman for the IAHA commissioner's office. ``This was his full-time job . . . for 11 years,'' she added.
Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures.
``He was asked to resign,'' Bill Pennington, president of the IAHA at the time, confirmed last night.
Soon after, Brown was invited to join the administration by his old Oklahoma college roommate Joseph Allbaugh, the previous head of FEMA until he quit in 2003 to work for the president's re-election campaign."


Shouldn't he be asked to resign again?

 

[ok2bclever]

In an exclusive interview broadcast on ABC's Good Morning America, George Bush said "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

Contrary to our top politician's rhetoric experts have warned for years that the ring of high levees around New Orleans, designed to protect the city from Mississippi River floodwaters, will only make things worse in a powerful hurricane.

If the levees hold against an expected 28-foot storm surge which they are not designed to do, water will pour over their tops and begin filling the city as if it were a sinking canoe and if they breech as expected with this high a category hurricane the storm surge and Lake Pontchartrain will pour in even more water.

Nope, no one could have anticipated, right.

In June 2004, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported: "For the first time in 37 years, federal budget cuts have all but stopped major work on the New Orleans area's east bank hurricane levees, a complex network of concrete walls, metal gates and giant earthen berms that won't be finished for at least another decade."

The Chicago Tribune followed up on September 1, 2005: "Despite continuous warnings that a catastrophic hurricane could hit New Orleans, the Bush administration and Congress in recent years have repeatedly denied full funding for hurricane preparation and flood control."

The Tribune report attributed funding cuts "in part" to the cost of the war on Iraq, and cited documents from the Army Corps of Engineers that showed that seven contracts had been delayed.

"I do feel that if it had been totally funded, there would be less flooding than you have," former Republican Mississippi congressman Michael Parker told the Tribune. Parker headed the Army Corps of Engineers until March 2002, when "he was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps' budget."

On the day the hurricane hit, the Times-Picayune declared: "No one can say they didn't see it coming." errr, except apparently bush.

Just last year, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced how they would respond to a fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents. Imagine the feeble FEMAs response to Katrina if they had not prepared.

Hurricane Ivan forced the evacuation of New Orleans in September of 2004.

The same report, entitled "Ivan exposes flaws in N.O.'s disaster plans,"

This was a year ago.

The bottom line is all of this was predicted and expected, but it would have cost serious money (no where near what it will just to clean up now of course or taking in the cost in human life).

So it ends up this was ignored with the hope it wouldn't happen on any particular politician's watch.