Blanco, Nagin, Bush

[Broken Glass Can]

From an article I was reading: (http://www.allheadlinenews.com/)

Outrage broke out over the Internet Friday as pictures of a flooded parking lot in the city of New Orleans showed over one-thousand school buses parked in a locked area that many critics say that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin could have used if he wanted to evacuate thousands of poor people from the inner-city.

Nagin was also widely criticized for helping tourists (many foreigners) who were staying at the upscale "W" hotel downtown, escape the hell of looting and death of the city, by sending down buses and having the hotel guests put at the head of the line of people who had been waiting for days at the Super dome under conditions that were severely below that of conditions at the "W". Nagin put the estimated 450 people on buses to the Astrodome in Houston, ahead of thousands who had suffered circumstances beyond comprehension.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco says that President Bush had called the night of August 27, urging the state to order evacuation and declaring it a state of emergency.

Gov. Blanco however did not federalize the order for National Guard troops to come into the city until the levee had broken on the 17th street canal, as well as not setting up a command team before the storm hit with satellite phones and other means to get word out about the situation downtown to officials outside the city.

<font color="green"> It looks like Bush suggested the right course of action, and Blanco failed to act. There are so many more state and local authorities present at the onset of a crisis, that a failure of those state authorities to act will cause chaos. It takes time for the feds to move in, and the failure of local authorities created a mess that the feds now have to fix. </font>

[Zeno]

There will be plenty of blame to go around but certainly some key people did not response quickly enough or in a organized manner and misjudged the magnitude of the crisis.

The state of Louisiana has a history of intractable corruption, ineptitude of leaders, and systematic favoritism and racism all fostered by tradition and ignorance. Actually that could be said about many places in the United States. And also a few other locations about this wondrous globe.

As things unfold, even more remarkable ineptitude will be revealed all along the chain of responsible officals.

... and there is no new thing under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 1:9.

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[JackWhite]

Don't you know that natural disasters are the fault of Republicans? I thought we proved that as a fact on this board.

[pankwindu]

[ QUOTE ]
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco says that President Bush had called the night of August 27, urging the state to order evacuation and declaring it a state of emergency.

[/ QUOTE ]

Translation: "You're on your own; I'm on vacation."

let me get this straight. A good presidents role in an impending crisis is to call the governor of a rescource starved state, and suggest evacuation. COME ON GUY. We are not talking about a state that has it's act together financially like NY, Cali, Ma. etc... Why not start mobilizing well trained U.S. troops before the storm, so they can move in shortly thereafter as opposed to waiting for 48 hours after the storm to start the mobilization process. In addition, there have been numerous studies done by experts suggesting that the levees would break in a storm such as this. Clearly N.O would need federal money to do this. I think the most damning thing, and this is specific to the Bush administration is its systematic slashing of FEMA's capabilities.
January 2001: Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, a crony from Texas, as head of FEMA. Allbaugh has no previous experience in disaster management.


April 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daniels announces the Bush administration's goal of privatizing much of FEMA's work. In May, Allbaugh confirms that FEMA will be downsized: "Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program...." he said. "Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level."


2001: FEMA designates a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country."


December 2002: After less than two years at FEMA, Allbaugh announces he is leaving to start up a consulting firm that advises companies seeking to do business in Iraq. He is succeeded by his deputy, Michael Brown, who, like Allbaugh, has no previous experience in disaster management.


March 2003: FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level position and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its mission is refocused on fighting acts of terrorism.


2003: Under its new organization chart within DHS, FEMA's preparation and planning functions are reassigned to a new Office of Preparedness and Response. FEMA will henceforth focus only on response and recovery.


Summer 2004: FEMA denies Louisiana's pre-disaster mitigation funding requests. Says Jefferson Parish flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue: "You would think we would get maximum consideration....This is what the grant program called for. We were more than qualified for it."


June 2004: The Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee construction in New Orleans is slashed. Jefferson Parish emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri comments: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay."


June 2005: Funding for the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is cut by a record $71.2 million. One of the hardest-hit areas is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes.


August 2005: While New Orleans is undergoing a slow motion catastrophe, Bush mugs for the cameras, cuts a cake for John McCain, plays the guitar for Mark Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and continues with his vacation. When he finally gets around to acknowledging the scope of the unfolding disaster, he delivers only a photo op on Air Force One and a flat, defensive, laundry list speech in the Rose Garden.


So: A crony with no relevant experience was installed as head of FEMA. Mitigation budgets for New Orleans were slashed even though it was known to be one of the top three risks in the country. FEMA was deliberately downsized as part of the Bush administration's conservative agenda to reduce the role of government. After DHS was created, FEMA's preparation and planning functions were taken away.

Actions have consequences. No one could predict that a hurricane the size of Katrina would hit this year, but the slow federal response when it did happen was no accident. It was the result of four years of deliberate Republican policy and budget choices that favor ideology and partisan loyalty at the expense of operational competence. It's the Bush administration in a nutshell.
Broken Glass Can, read this and tell us that the Bush administration doesn't need to shoulder some serious blaim for this.