Posted on 09/03/2005 7:19:37 AM PDT by Truthsayer20
Congress Likely to Probe Guard Delay By SHARON THEIMER Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Several states ready and willing to send National Guard troops to the rescue in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans didn't get the go-ahead until days after the storm struck - a delay nearly certain to be investigated by Congress.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state's National Guard on Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn't come from Washington until late Thursday.
California troops just began arriving in Louisiana on Friday, three days after flood waters devastated New Orleans and chaos broke out. In fact, when New Orleans' levees gave way to deadly flooding on Tuesday, Louisiana's National Guard had received help from troops in only three other states: Ohio, which had nine people in Louisiana then; Oklahoma, 89; and Texas, 625, figures provided by the National Guard show.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Cutler, who leads the Michigan National Guard, said he anticipated a call for police units and started preparing them, but couldn't go until states in the hurricane zone asked them to come.
"We could have had people on the road Tuesday," Cutler said. "We have to wait and respond to their need."
The Michigan National Guard was asked for military police by Mississippi late Tuesday and by Louisiana officials late Wednesday. The state sent 182 MPs to Mississippi on Friday and had 242 headed to Louisiana on Saturday.
With many states' Guard units depleted by deployments to Iraq, Katrina's aftermath was almost certain from the beginning to require help from faraway states.
Republicans and Democrats alike in Congress are just beginning to ask why one of the National Guard's most trusted roles - disaster relief - was so uneven, delayed and chaotic this time around.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said the situation has shown major breakdowns in the nation's emergency response capabilities. "There must be some accountability in this process after the crisis is addressed," he said.
Democrat Ben Nelson, Nebraska's other senator, said he now questions National Guard leaders' earlier assertions that they had enough resources to respond to natural disasters even with the Iraq war. "I'm going to ask that question again," Nelson said. "Do we have enough (troops), and if we do, why were they not deployed sooner?" President Bush was asked that question Friday as he toured the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast area and said he disagrees with criticism the military is stretched too thin.
"We've got a job to defend this country in the war on terror, and we've got a job to bring aid and comfort to the people of the Gulf Coast, and we'll do both," he said.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., plans to make oversight of the Defense Department, the National Guard and their assistance his top priority when he returns to Washington next week from an overseas trips, spokesman John Ullyot said Friday.
Bush had the legal authority to order the National Guard to the disaster area himself, as he did after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks . But the troops four years ago were deployed for national security protection, and presidents of both parties traditionally defer to governors to deploy their own National Guardsmen and request help from other states when it comes to natural disasters.
Though slow at the beginning, out-of-state Guard help was markedly increasing by the start of the weekend. As of Friday, nearly half the states had Guard members in Louisiana, boosting the total to at least 5,600 from out of state. Hundreds more were on the way.
Michigan, which was ready to help before the storm began, was sending 500 National Guard troops Friday and Saturday to help with water purification in Mississippi and police duty in New Orleans.
Arizona didn't get a request for military police until Thursday, when it received an urgent message sent to all state National Guards by the National Guard Bureau at the request of Louisiana, said Capt. Paul Aguirre. He said the unit cannot leave Phoenix until Sunday because arriving units must arrive at a pace the receiving end can handle. Among those headed in were several hundred from Wisconsin, where the governor took the unusual step of declaring a disaster outside his state to activate his Guard.
"This was the first time a governor ever declared a natural disaster in another state and activated to that other state," said Gov. Jim Doyle, who issued his order Wednesday. "We were ready to be deployed within 24 hours of that order."
In addition to Guard help, the federal government could have activated, but did not, a major air support plan under a pre-existing contract with airlines. The program, called Civilian Reserve Air Fleet, lets the government quickly put private cargo and passenger planes into service. The CRAF provision has been activated twice, once for the Persian Gulf War and again for the Iraq war. ---
Well, that basically sums it up. Of course, some governments are better at dealing with things than others. But I'd want to be as far away from NO as possible as early as possible, and avoid getting caught up in this whole mess.
... DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTEDAlso, early Sunday morning, the National Hurricane Center, too, reported that Katrina would be "comparable in intensity to Hurricane Camille of 1969 … only larger." The likely outcome was that it would stay a Cat 5 unless God decided to sap it of its strength.... HURRICANE KATRINA ... A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.
MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.
THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.
HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.
AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY
VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.
POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.
THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.
AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR HURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.
ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE!
If you noticed he did take control because those 2 failed to step up and be a leader
Question. Why didn't we have the NG mobilized before the hurricane?
Of course over there, it's all Bush's fault, and it's not fair to blame the governor, because she's like a Mother who has lost a child.
"You know, her state was just devastated. WHY are you blaming her?
It's like blaming an injured accident victim for not getting up and walking away from a crash - or better yet, like blaming an injured accident victim from not assisting others involved in the crash.
I think I'll call it the "Sheehan Defense".
(Can you find my posts on the DU thread?)
Yes, in general. But Bush can take over that responsibility.
Lets not get stuck on semantics. What I meant with 'paperwork', apart from physical documents, is that the White House had the option of being the active communicator to acquire oral authorization when the call from Blanco never came!
The problem is that we are arguing here about legal responsibilities like a bunch of lawyers. The ultimate moral responsibility (in the eyes of the general public) in the face of natural disaster falls on the national government when those legally responsible don't act. Now, I don't necessarily agree with this notion that we should always except the government to come and save us. Individual initiative can do wonders. Look at the young man commandeering a school bus out of New Orleans and saving 70 people in the act!
These storms give a two or three day warning, and the tracking is very accurate now. Much can be done if there is preplaning, pre-positioned military staging areas and intensity and focus. We are in the decade of intense hurricanes, and strong hurricanes are likely to hit again and again, and when they hit the shallow waters of the gulf, huge storm surges will hit again and again.
I know very well what it was; I've been on these threads for almost two weeks.
Whatever it WAS, your statement was incorrect. It did not make LANDFALL as a CAT 4, which is what the NHC records.
Uh huh......and just who in the general public gets to decide when that is?
Oh, and how long will that take -- you know, for the general public to come to agreement that the governors and mayors are in over their heads and the president needs to step in?
Do you think that would have been accomplished by TODAY?
There was no centralized national focus, a focus with the intensity to match the intensity of the storm, to sweep away all the bureacratic BS. One does not have time for that when you have 72 hours to act.
If it is a paperwork snafu, the solution is get rid of the red tape. Allow troops to go into action immediately.
Yes, it's the only one that makes SENSE........LOL.
Now there is an alert observation.
We should act on that at the appropriate time...say about July of 2008.
We're very much on the same page, except I suggest that Bush had to have known how this would turn out in the hands of idiots like Blanco and Nagin before this became a crisis and should have had everything set up to come in and take control. He should have gotten pre-clearance, so to speak, from the governors telling them that he was 99.9% sure that the NG troops would be needed to assist NO/LA and he should have set up plans for evacuations and such. He should not have assumed that Blanco and Nagin would do anything right.
Fax machine? Am I allowed to use the fax machine? -- Gov. Blanco
"Look, this entire situation borders on the ridiculous. "
Yes.
"Let's assume that Governor Blanco was for one reason or another unable to act.... "
And THAT is where you diverged from reality.
It was HER responsibility to activate troops in her state and request troops from neighboring states.
NOT the President.
It is NOT up to the President to do Blano's job FOR her.
As it sits, the President already did one end run around Blanco and Nagins to tell people to get out.
And some whined about THAT.
It appears that for some people, the President can never do anything right.
The problem with all of this noise is that it plays into the Lib's goals.. taking the National Guard away from the States and ultimately giving jurisdiction over law enforcement to the President and the Federal Government.. In all of this vicious recriminations, there is a power grab happening and "conservatives" better think twice about going along with this program.
RINOs are more infuriating than RATs.
GOVERNOR of LA is a she.
She did not do ANYTHING until the President told people to get out.
WHAT is so hard to understand about this?
My unit was activated at the STATE level for a blizzard back in 97-98.
Though we were all technically activated, only four of us were put to use.
But it was a STATE level activation due to the blizzard.
Fast forward to 9/11.
In response to that, at the STATE level, members of my unit were activated.
Are you seeing a pattern here yet?
The responsibility to activate troops was not on the President, it was on BLANCO and she did NOTHING.
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