Top federal officials left out of loop (Well wha-da-ya know)

The Washington Times ^ | 09-05-05 | Audrey Hudson

[smoothsailing]

State and local officials did not inform top federal officials early on of the deaths and lack of food among hurricane victims in the Superdome or convention center, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday.

Mr. Chertoff said neither he nor Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown was told of the deteriorating situation in New Orleans until Thursday night.

[Grampa Dave]

Re: Why Didn't Louisiana Follow it's Required Emergency Plan?

Travis McGee in an earlier reply to another thread has provided the coffin and wooden stake to handle the soon to be former mayor of N O's.:

I hope that sooner or later the MSM discovers that New Orleans did have a written emergency plan to cover the evacuation of the poor, but that the idiot mayor of New Orleans ignored it, and allowed the evacuation buses to be ruined by the flood, forgotten.

The city leaders had at least two full days to use these hundreds of buses to evac the poor, exactly as their own emergency management plan called for.

Here's the southeast Louisiana evac plan supplement, most recently revised in 2000. Go to page 13, read paragraph 5. It states: 5. The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.

48 posted on 09/04/2005 9:13:43 AM PDT by Travis McGee (--- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com ---)

[ Post Reply

[Anti-Bubba182]

This is damning:

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks. This is more than damning. Also, those freeways were elevated and the buses could have been put on I10.

[Roy Tucker]

"if there is ever an honest investigation."

In NOLA? Surely, you jest.

[Misterioso]

If terrorists had blown the levees, what should the response have been?

Very good question. It would be interesting to work out that scenario and then ask The Authorities what was planned for that possibility.

[maryz]

NOt to make excuses but it could be that he was working and not watching TV. He shouldn't have had to get that news from MSM.

I agree. One would assume (at least I would) that the local officials would be the primary source of news about current circumstances, both for federal officials (who would get the full story) and for the media (who would get what they could).

Are Homeland Security directives to be rewritten to assign a responsible person to monitor the cable (and local?) news channels because the locals might not know what they're doing? Sounds weird, but it might be practical.

[Road Warrior ‘04]

Although the problems were being reported by the media, it's apparent now, that no one had been taking the media seriously. The media, that has cried wolf so many times, now were not to be believed! The end of MSM!

[maryz]

Pouring dirty water in the back of the toilet would have made them flush.

As I understand it, the entire NO sewage system was out of commission because of the storm. Nothing was going anywhere, even assuming they had some sort of bucket and deep enough standing water to scoop.

As for picking up their trash -- pick it up and put it where? Stack it in neat piles? Maybe there was a janitorial supply closet and they could have had one of the armed evacuees shoot off the lock?

[mewzilla]

Paging the Times-Picayune....

[Patriot from Philly]

CNN and MSNBC is trying Sheehanization of the mayor. They are presenting him as a wonderful hero. The fact is that he is an incompetent fool and they won't get away with it.

[bmwcyle]

Splineless on both sides.

[Wonder Warthog]

"I wouldn't trust *any* politician; that includes Nagin, Blanco, Brown and/or Chertoff."

Nagin and Blanco are politicians---Brown and Chertoff are bureaucrats. Different species--same jungle

[TomGuy]

It must be noted that, in the second pic, those are city transit buses.

Nagin had access to every one of them, too, but by the aftermath, they sat idle, in a pool of floodwater.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks in some of my earlier posts, I had pointed out that the white buses were N O's city buses.

I have gotten emails from people who are saying basically two things about the buses not being used.

1. Da Mayor's lawyers told him not to use the school buses incase one of them got into an accident evacuating people.

2. Da Mayor couldn't get union drivers to respond and was afraid of making them mad if he used other drivers.

Apparently in one of his rants he demanded that every Greyhound Bus and Driver in the Country be sent to N O's to pick up his citizens.

[SaintDismas]

Help from where? By who? The feds? Where are the feds, around the corner? This is so ridiculous

[ekwd]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't believe that the convention center was a storm shelter, just a place where people began to gather when they learned that it was above water, so officials would not have known before the storm that a large number of survivors would be there. Also, I think that Fox first reported (I don't watch CNN at all) about survivors at the convention center Thursday at the earliest. It was only when the cameras reached the convention center that I was convinced of a crisis there.
At one point a Navy or Coast Guard officer was asked about the convention center. From his answer it was clear to me that he thought he was being asked about the Superdome survivors. Confusion reigned.

We were continually warned about "rumors and propaganda" while I was in the Air Force. Diverting resources to deal with a false rumor can defeat you long before the enemy does.

Get this straight folks: the people at the convention center, in the Superdome, and on those overpasses, as terrible as their plight was, were among the relatively fortunate victims of Katrina. The people trapped under rubble for more than 100 miles east of New Orleans and the people trapped in attics and on roofs in the New Orleans area were far worse off.

[maica]

Chertoff said locals never told him about victims showing up at the convention center in video conference on midday Tuesday.

^^^^^


When officials do the after action studies they will learn when people started to appear at the convention center. I think it was a location that the Coast Guard rescue was using. I think that there were few to no people there on Tuesday. We have to remember that Michael Chertoff is not the New Orleans Director of Emergency Operations or even the Gulf Coast Director of EO. In the future, his organizational structure will have to include "assistant detailed to watch cable and regional TV during a disaster" and more importantly "assistant detailed to follow Free Republic."

[maica]

One of the worst failures in NO was the failure of any kind of backup communication. We saw what could be seen from a TV satellite truck, but inside the city LEOs had no idea what was happening if they couldn't see it in person. They could not even send a runner with information. The Coast Guard who were depositing people at the convention center were told by 'somebody' to do so, but that 'somebody' did not also tell the Mayor, or local EOC, or Governor, or - That 'somebody' must have assumed that it was a good decision to send people there.

I have confidence that General Honore will explain it to us all sometime down the road.

[maica]

Stephens said he survived off of MREs and water, and that he lost weight


%%%%%%

Oh, there WAS food and water!!!!!

[timtoews5292004]

If they were watching the coverage, one would say that they could have easily seen that the situation was worse than expected and acted unilaterally to head the problem off at the pass.