AP Enterprise: Bush administration maps changes for next Katrina [AP Alert]

AP via NOLA ^ | 12/31/2005 | LARRY MARGASAK

[ncountylee]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Before the next big hurricane's winds howl ashore, Homeland Security officials want an emergency communications network operating, emergency medical facilities treating patients, and teams dispatched to search for victims at the likely ground zero.

In the wake of congressional hearings that exposed the breathtaking failures of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration is retooling its disaster plan to react more quickly to the next catastrophe.

Michael Brown, now the ex-chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, became the public face of Katrina's failure. But the administration is reviewing how other leaders also failed last August to execute a playbook approved just eight months earlier to handle such a disaster.

For example, Brown's boss — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff — did not invoke special powers in the National Response Plan that would have rushed federal aid to New Orleans when state and local officials said they were swamped.

The department rejected the authority, concluding that it should be invoked only for sudden catastrophic events that offer no time for preparation and not for slow-approaching hurricanes.

[ncountylee]

In the wake of congressional hearings that exposed the breathtaking failures of the federal response...

With no mention, other than snipes, of the real problems...Nagin and Blanco.

[68skylark]

Gotta give a lot of credit to Democrats on this one -- they've taken their own monumental incompetence at the local and state level, and by the power of magic they've changed it into a federal failure.

[Dallas59]

In the wake of congressional hearings that exposed the breathtaking failures of the federal response...

How dramatic. I can still breath...quite easily really.

[Dallas59]

Joan Crawford must still be alive and running the AP.

[Bogey78O]

If I was tasked with creating an emergency radio network I'd build transmitting sites at high points (bridges/parking garages/highrises) using conventional electric with propane/LP gas generator back-up connected to a rectifier and a string of lead acid batteries. Guaranteed up to 24 hours or more of unmaintained use after total collapse of the power and gas grid. I'd connect it to a buried collapsed fiber ring to a secured remote central station.

Bell uses a backbone similar to this. Except they don't assume catastrophic loss of power so the power system is set up for 8-12 hour of use.

Anyone who thought the cell phones would work knows didly squat about the cell system. You're relying on a tower:
a) keeping power
b) not being congested once the 24 to 48 channels get slammed by calls for help
c) not losing the physical network link
d) not being physically destroyed
e) the network backbone not getting killed (which happend to several providers- not saying names for proprietary reasons)
f) trunk lines from working central offices not getting knocked out or over congested


The first three on that list would almost certainly happen during a bad situation. The remaining ones happened when Katrina hit.

[Bogey78O]

Nagin I give slack for if only because he admits that he was over his head. He's more honest than the other Dems in this calamity. He's willing to accept some blame for what went wrong.

[bigsigh]

Need one plan for locales with competent government and another for those without.

[CajunConservative]

This is what Rita did to the electrical transmission towers about 50 miles inland. I do know that the local leaders here made damn sure that they had sat phones before Rita made landfall.

[Bogey78O]

Yea, high tension power lines too a big hit from the thousands of pounds of force from the wires pulling them side to side.

Satellite phones are problematic too since the intense cloud cover and shielding from being inside can block the signal. But I'd have picked them easily over cellular phones.