Posted on 09/02/2005 11:05:34 PM PDT by doug from upland
You forgot the Mayor of NO.
disregard, I was talking about the governor, hair and makeup, perfect.
"Robert Modean Says:
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:24 pm
Sorry Joel & ROE, but you guys are WAAAYYY off base in criticizing FEMA. Disaster preparedness is the responsibility of State and Local authorities – in this case LEMA (The Louisiana Emergency Management Agency). There is a state-wide director for disaster relief in every state – that person is called the Governor. There is a local director for disaster relief in every municipality – that person is called the Mayor.
FEMA is a coordinating body that assists State and Local authorities in getting the resources they need. Because they are the “go to” people most folks are under the impression that they are in charge, and in fact if the State and Local authorities abdicate control over a disaster area they will take over. Typically after the initial response to a disaster the local guys do just that, leave FEMA in control. That’s because they have the experience and personnel to manage disasters of this scale.
Disclosure: I’m a volunteer coordinator for MEMA (The Missouri Emergency Management Agency), I’ve been through three major floods and a few big storms that generated enough tornado damage to get the affected counties disaster relief – believe me when I tell you what we are seeing from FEMA now is lightyears ahead of what I’ve seen from them in the past. Typically it took two to three days just to get the disaster declaration, then another two to three to get FEMA deployed – of course by then the local guys had been on the ground working around the clock for five or six days and we were more than happy to dump everything in FEMA’s lap. That’s the way the system is designed. Bush saw that and tried to skip a few steps to speed things up, he pre-declared the areas disaster areas. So what we are seeing in NO is the result of a convergence of factors:
First, the storm damage was bad, but the flooding has made relief efforts ten times harder than anything they could have imagined. Second, Mayor Nagin’s performance has been pathetic. This is the worst case of poor planning and criminal incompetence I’ve ever seen.
Like I said, Bush declared the gulf coast area a Federal Disaster area on Saturday – two days before Katrina hit. That freed up FEMA resources for local and state coordinators and allowed for the pre-positioning of supplies so they could be rapidly deployed to the affected areas. Mayor Nagin waited until the last minute to call for an evacuation of the city, but the poorest people could not evacuate – why weren’t school busses used to get them out of town?
Mayor Nagin made the last minute decision to declare the Superdome and COnvention centers as refuge relocation points – why weren’t they stocked with water, food, bedding, generators, and fuel? Why weren’t hospitals offered additional resources by the Mayors office?
Mayor Nagin made the decision to allow looting and told the police to focus on Search and Rescue – but looting hinders S&R efforts (as we’ve seen) and no one I know could believe that decision – it’s emergency management 101, preserving order preserves life. There’s plenty of blame to go around – Blanco deserves her share too – but the real culprit in the aftermath here is Nagin."
Thanks for that info. Governor Blanco had the power and responsibility to deliver food and water. If that is the case and the troops were under her control, why is the President at fault for failure to deliver water for three or four days? Why is the President at fault for the transportation failures?
Waiting for the dime......our dime.
Furthermore, the federal government may not intervene until asked by the governor.
_________________________________
Exactly the president of the US may not invade Louisiana or any other state. Now I guess Bush could have Federalized the LA National Guard like Ike did with the AR national guard for desegregating Little Rock Central, but he had to give the LA authorities a day or so to act.
Had he federalized them the first day he would have been rightly accused of grandstanding. And the Louisiana and New Orleans officials know the territory. They know or should know where to allocate the troops and what neighborhood is what. Some out of state FEMA manager does not know this.
bttt
i think Blanko was politically chicken (as a white person) to bring the NG and their guns into her city of black persons. Fearing she'd be blamed for bullying them. Not expecting of course that the situation would go from bad ("oh let them steal food") to worse (OMG they've got the police under seige). A purely selfish political decision imo. Not caring at all for "her people".
Blanco zippo. :^)
Very helpful. Thanks.
yup, Charlie Rangel is at it with the racist crap, he needs a boot big time
Thud posted that on the latest Katrina thread.
What did this Blanco do before becoming Governor, Walmart greeter?
It is starting to become a little more clear. I think. Blanco had the power and duty to maintain order and deliver water with the LNG she commanded. And yet, the MSM is blaming federal authorities in general and the President in particular.
When did the levee break and it become impossible to get vehicles in there? Could the vehicles have delivered supplies on Tuesday?
This is code for "pay for all relief efforts" !
It also says "provide assistance" not take over all command and control !
I used to teach command and control and incident command and the top does "not" direct local forces. During any disaster each area is sectored out and there is one person in charge in each sector not the top or in this case the Feds !
A perfect case of this was on 9/11 when the Gov't had NY, PA and DC as sectors and the Feds provided support to each of them. The civilian world has a chain of command just like the military does !
FEMA ought to have had in hand a plan prepared by local officials. Apparently there were none.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0905/01edwitt.html
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.