Katrina Live Threads, Part XV

U.S. commercial air carriers continue transporting tens of thousands of evacuees from the New Orleans airport to destinations throughout the nation.

Rooftop air rescue efforts continue. One rescue chopper crashed late today. Crew members are reported safe. Gunmen who fired upon bridge repair contractors were killed by law enforcement.

To date, an estimated 70 countries and U.S. businesses have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars, supplies, food and equipment to assist the United States' efforts in Katrina's aftermath. Lt. General Honore described the damage to Mississippi today, "all infrastructure south of Jackson, MS is either damaged or destroyed." Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice visited the devastated areas, and attended Sunday church services in Mobile, Alabama.

Elsewhere, Sean Penn's rescue boat, sans plug and full of his personal entourage,reportedly sank during launch in New Orleans. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) threatened to punch President Bush, and Jefferson Parish President Broussard decried that the bureaucracy of FEMA has committed murder.

New Orleans Emergency Operations Center - is now open:
504-463-1000
504-463-1001
504-463-1002

All information is subject to change. Many stations are relying on their corporate parents to configure and maintain Internet streaming. Because of the intense interest in the feeds, they may be unavailable at times because of network congestion or a problem feeding the video to the streaming servers.

WWL-TV New Orleans - WWL-TV is operating from studios at Louisiana Public Broadcasting. CBS has a relay during the morning and afternoon. When available, use the CBS relay first as they have greater streaming capacity. They have a secondary stream from Yahoo. WWL-TV is also offering a special low-bandwidth audio-only stream for dial-up users.

WDSU-TV New Orleans - The news staff has started to return to temporary news studios near New Orleans. However, expect evening coverage from Hearst-Argyle sister stations WAPT Jackson and WESH Orlando when the New Orleans staff needs to take a break.

WGNO-TV New Orleans - New Orleans' ABC affiliate has returned to the air with WBRZ-TV and launched video streaming with continuous Katrina coverage.

WPMI-TV Mobile, AL - WPMI is webcasting from 5:30am - 10:30pm CDT. When off air, you can view pre-recorded reports on demand. This feed is often unreliable.

WKRG-TV Mobile, AL - This station is providing good coverage of the situation to the east in Mississippi and Alabama. However, the station is now signing off at around 10:30pm CDT like WWL and WPMI.

WJTV-TV Jackson, MS - The CBS affiliate in Jackson is providing live coverage for both the Jackson area and south Mississippi (knowing a lot of media in that area is off the air).

WFAA-TV Dallas, TX - WFAA-TV is here because Dallas is one of the evacuation cities.

United Radio From New Orleans: WWL-AM, WNOE-FM, "KISS-FM," WRNO-FM, WYLD-FM, and WJBO-AM (Clear Channel & Entercom) who have joined forces as United Radio From New Orleans, and they are streaming.

Gulf Coast Storm Network (Clear Channel Radio) - Clear Channel offers radio listeners across the gulf coast access to a simulcast emergency radio service. This service seems primarily focused on Alabama and Mississippi, but does cover Louisiana to some degree.

Due to the number of requests to assist, the following list of some charities is provided.
This is not intended as an endorsement for any of the charities.

www.redcross.org or 1-800 HELP NOW - note: website is slow, and lines are busy
Salvation Army - 1-800-SAL-ARMY or Salvation Army currently looking for in-state volunteers - (888)363-2769
Operation Blessing: (800) 436-6348.
America's Second Harvest: (800) 344-8070.
Catholic Charities USA: (800) 919-9338, or www.catholiccharitiesusa.org.
Christian Reformed World Relief Committee: (800) 848-5818.
Church World Service: (800) 297-1516 or online at www.churchworldservice. org.
Lutheran Disaster Response: (800) 638-3522.
Nazarene Disaster Response: (888) 256-5886.
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance: (800) 872-3283.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is accepting donations at its 3,800 stores and Web site, www.walmart.com.
National Black Home Educators Resource Association http://www.nbhera.org/ Southern Baptist: NAMB - http://www.namb.net/
Samaritan's Purse - http://www.samaritanspurse.org/

Confusion once again.

It is a little early for a thorough post-mortem analysis, but a couple of thoughts come to mind.

To be sure, at least so far, FEMA has not performed as expected, but in some cases neither have the States or local communities. The President, who seemed to be in a surly mood at the time, admitted as much publicly. Others in this Forum are better equipped than I to describe how the President could step in and take over and federalize portions of Louisiana, without the consent of the Governor of that State. While the President formally offered that option to the Governor on Friday last, we do not know exactly when that offer was first made, verbally or otherwise. Given the critical nature of the assets in New Orleans and nearby it may have well been presented as an option early on. One can certainly speculate that the protection of the Port of New Orleans, the economic highway that is the Mississippi, and critical energy infrastructure in the Gulf region is a national security concern. As it turned out, a couple of days after the hurricane hit land it was apparent the infrastructure of the oil and gas facilities in the Gulf and land based facilities were fairly intact, with some exceptions, e. g., refineries outages in LA and pumping stations in MS without power. The major reason those assets were secured relatively quickly was due to the actions of the Coast Guard and private oil and gas operators in the Gulf area. As an aside, I must commend the Coast Guard for their performance. Their efforts to secure the Port of New Orleans, the offshore docking facilities, shipping lanes to the Gulf, and search and rescue operations was and is outstanding.

Although I have not been active on this Forum very long, I have been very critical, in other settings, of the way FEMA was set up many years ago in 1974. I have also been critical of the fashion in which the Homeland Security Department was set up intially.

The major events leading to the consolidation of federal emergency relief operations prior to the establishment of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), were the string of disasters that occurred in the 1960's and early 1970's that overwhelmed State governments.At the time the Stafford Act was passed in 1974, the major points of debate centered around what responsibilities the States would retain given the proposed structure and what cost sharing arrangements would be put in place to supplement State funds in the event of a disaster. What followed was a five year debate on just those questions resulting in the creation of FEMA in 1979. In 1979, at the request of the National Governors Association, President Carter, by executive order, consolidated many agencies responsible for disaster related activities. The FEMA regime continued from there on with some minor adjustments until after the turn of the century. Then an event occurred which finally changed at least the focus of disaster relief. We all know what that event was, 9-11. This milestone and the response that followed pointed to the major flaws in the FEMA system and other Federal functions associated with disaster response. The key words here are assets, security, command and control.

In the State of Louisiana there is one major department that reports to the Governor that is charged with providing relief and security in a disaster scenario. The head of that department is the Adjutant General of the State of Louisiana. In addition to his duties as Commander of the Louisiana National Guard, the AG also has the title of Director of the Louisiana Military Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Thus, the Governor has single level command and control over both security and disaster relief. We can debate at a later time whether this type of organization is better than others, or was effective in responding to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

In the State of Mississippi the Adjutant General and Executive Director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency are separate, cabinet level departments with both reporting directly to the Governor.

IMHO: The Federal Government is not a bottomless cookie jar, whereby each State can whine to the Feds., saying over and over again, gimmie, gimmie, gimmie. The Governors and officials in those States are responsible for the security of their citizens. The Federal Government can help whenever it can, but the Governors of the respective States must take responsibility for their own actions. If you can't stand the heat, try some other line of work like baking cookies.

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