Posted on 09/09/2005 12:06:21 PM PDT by tallhappy
WASHINGTON - The retired admiral who played a key role in drafting the Homeland Security Department's catastrophic emergency plan said the agency was too hesitant in executing it in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Retired Adm. James Loy, who until February was acting secretary of the department, said in an interview yesterday that the need for an immediate federal response was "pretty evident" but that the department did not act fast enough to take the lead.
--- snip ---
The plan allowed Brown to call the shots on how state and federal resources should be used, including the Defense Department. Instead, Loy said, the federal government used a slow "bureaucratic licensing process," in which it waited until local and state governments were overwhelmed before stepping in and waited again before asking the Pentagon, "the ultimate resource provider," to help.
"For God's sake," Loy said, the Defense Department gets "$450 billion a year to do what the federal government needs to get done."
----- snip ----
Loy said the execution of the new national plan was also impeded by mixed messages. FEMA's Brown is Chertoff's man on the ground, Loy said, and yet everyone from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore were holding news conferences as if they were in charge.
"I would have expected the principal federal official [Brown] would have a once-a-day news conference down there," Loy said, adding that there's ample guidance in the national plan. "Heck, we even developed a public affairs index to the plan."
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
I'm sorry but where is the failure if your department is not allowed in? Where was the latency?
Aren't they more for storms, etc.? Isn't Homeland Security more for enemy attack and such?
Didn't Lieberman errantly put it there with Hitlery's help?
I HATE freaking Monday morning quarterbacks! STHU! Admiral, you weren't there and don't have a clue what was going on!
I agree!!!
I'm sorry, America has states with chief executives called "GOVERNORS". The president, nor FEMA, nor Homeland Security nor the Defense Department should assume immediate control of a state until and when the Governor formally requests help.
"I HATE freaking Monday morning quarterbacks! STHU! Admiral, you weren't there and don't have a clue what was going on!"
I'd back Admiral Loy against any one else in DHS. This is the man who was the Commandant of the Coast Guard before Admiral Collins took the position, so he certainly knows something about emergency plans. The Government thinks so too; the current Vice-Commandant's been sent down there to shake up FEMA.
This is more of the push to federalize disaster relief.
We should fight this.
Even if it costs lives, the freedom from federal government takeover would be worth the cost.
But in fact in most cases the federal government wouldn't be as good as locals.
Can you imagine the federal government being in charge in New York right after that 2nd plane hit? They would still be arguing over safety and environmental issues while the towers were collapsing.
The city knew what to do, and had people in place to risk and give their lives to save their citizens.
Almost every city's police and fire department are ready to give themselves for the cause.
New Orleans, where half the police apparently ran off and they couldn't use school buses because all the drivers "had families of their own to evacuate", is an extraordinary case, not normal.
IN most city and county, people would be pouring into the city to feed and rescue people, and their officials would be letting them in. In New Orleans the strongest either left, or stayed behind to loot and pillage, while the government spent its effort keeping their people IN and the aid OUT.
But that is the exception, not the rule. And the answer is for the EFFECTED CITIZENS to realise the mistake they made and correct it at the next election.
Aactually, I'm wondering if it should be under Department of Defense....
Loy ain't no hack.
Is Loy really saying that one of FEMA's principal problems was that too many press conferences were being held by people other than FEMA and that FEMA wasn't a part of those press conferences?
It's already been shown that the LA authorities prevented FEMA from operating effectively. This guy is either senile, or a partisan hack. Which is it?
You may be Tallhappy, but you're clueless.
FEMA is all purpose generalized disaster planning and response. Disasters are just one of many security issues.
Just screw the 10th Amendment, libs hate it anyway, and Posse Commitatus and the dozen or so OTHER MINOR LAWS and take care of business.
"I'm sorry, America has states with chief executives called "GOVERNORS". The president, nor FEMA, nor Homeland Security nor the Defense Department should assume immediate control of a state until and when the Governor formally requests help."
From a military point of view, obviously things can go quicker if you don't have to deal with the "red tape" of being invited by the locals. However, it would seem to take time for the locals to evaluate their own situation based on their knowledge of their own town and tell the military how they can help.
Taken to the extreme I think of the portrayels in movies of the gung ho military types (Commies? Nuke em! Aliens? Nuke em. Giant spiders? Nuke em!)
That's a fraudulent statement. Perhaps that is why this guy got moved out. It his OPINON they could do this. Most legal authorities I have read do not agree with this very broad interpretation of the Law.
There are too many folks that live in the US that don't have the slightest clue about the government that we inherited. Ben Franklin had something like this to say about them
Definitely looks like we're have a hard time keeping it!
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