Chertoff and Brown are lawyers with little real executive experience directing large organizations. They were busy drafting up documents so that Bush could negotiate with Blanco. This is a lawyers' response not a leaders' reaction to a crisis. Initially, the Feds should have been more concerned about operational effectiveness assisting the victims than the regulations.
Several days into the crisis, GWB realized that there was a leadership vacuum. LtGen Honore also understood the need for leadership and seized the day. The Mayor and the Gov deserve the lion's share of the blame, but the Feds also dropped the ball initially.
Despite what you think, the President does not have almighty powers. And imagine the uproar on here if he (or bill/Hillary Clinton) did.
The 82nd Airborne/Marines or any other military unit can not be instantly deployed by the President snapping his fingers and saying "Make it so." They must be mobilized, and that may take a few days to do - and it did.
What do we know about bureaucracies? They don't move fast - that's for sure. The federal government is the biggest bureaucracy around - it doesn't matter if we are talking DOD, State or DHS/FEMA.
The key point of the article is that emergency management is local and there is a process to kick it up to the feds. It is amazing that no one is mentioning that New Orleans and LA have long been known to be the most corrupt governments in the country (Philly gives them a run for the money).
What role did corruption and malfeasance of local officials in New Orleans play in this disaster? I can guarantee that it is a big part of the problem.
Wrong, the responsibility, by law, INITIALLY falls on local and state governments. The problem falls with depending upon any level of government to protect us. At best they are reactionary.
I would challenge any of the politically motivated scum doing all the pissing and moaning about slow (what is slow/what is fast?) response to come up with a better solution to a Cat 5 hitting a city, stupid enough to be built below sea level, with a stupid crime infested population, a mayor too stupid to use buses before they were flooded, a governor too stupid to request Federal assistance in a timely manner.
For the left, no time frame would be fast enough. They have to use this to beat the right over the head.
Without the 20/20 hindsight none of the "Feds were too slow" crowd would do anything different.
In the future the government response may be better thanks to the lessons learned by this disaster.
I will say that anyone who understood Louisiana history should have expected the local authorities to make a Charlie-Foxtrot out of things. This isn't Florida, not even close. That is legitimate criticism of the Feds in this matter. It is never "business as usual" when you are dealing with Louisiana politicos.
And then the democrats would legally impeach Bush, with just cause.You would figure out how quick certian people would love the law be broken by Bush. The feds: FEMA, National Guard, Army can not do anything until the Governor permits them in writing.
States have rights, that means they have responsibilities. The federal government took over when they were permitted and only did what the state agreed to.
This is extremely easy to say, but it absolves all responsibility and accountability of the local and state agencies responsible for DEVELOPING and IMPLEMENTING 'their' disaster emergency plans, PLUS... constitutionally the State government (i.e. Governor) would have to relinquish jurishdictional control (i.e. "tantamount to declaring Federal martial law" accoring to Governor Blanco) over NO control to the Federal government.
After training at the local level year after year in more than one state I can tell you that FEMA isn't in the picture until you ask and they take more than a day to move in.
The 82nd and the 1st Cav are over there now as for humanitarian support and not police control. Regular troops can only be sent in for the Insurrection act or Martial law.
LOCAL, STATE FAILURES DOOMED NEW ORLEANS (Lonsberry)
boblonsberry.com ^ | 09/06/05 | Bob Lonsberry
Posted on 09/06/2005 6:35:29 AM PDT by shortstop
One of the astounding aspects of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy has been the profound incompetence of Louisiana’s politicians. Never has it been more clear that winning an election and being a leader are two completely different things.
From the run-up to the storm to the events since, Louisiana’s governor and New Orleans’ mayor have been useless, far more concerned with taking political advantage and misapplying blame than with saving people’s lives and doing their duty.
And, with incredible gall, this pair has led the ungrateful and dishonest charge against the federal government and President Bush. They, along with various race-baiters and a great many hateful celebrities, have turned this catastrophe to their political advantage, recasting it as an event of racist neglect instead of what it is – the largest relief effort in the history of the United States.
Those with blood on their hands dare to indict the rest of us.
And, yes, they do have blood on their hands.
The woeful mismanagement by the city of New Orleans of the evacuation, the shelters and the relief effort undeniably cost lives. What remains to be seen is how many lives.
Let’s take the evacuation. Though information has been shifting and hard to come by, it seems clear that while the city did run inadequate transit buses for free to evacuate residents before the storm, the much larger school bus fleet was left idle. In fact, it was not even moved so that it not only did not carry any people to safety, it was lost to rising flood waters.
Literally thousands of people were left to face the storm and its aftermath because the city didn’t send its largest transportation tool – the school buses – to get them.
And the two city-established shelters – the convention center and the Superdome – quickly turned to misery and violence because the city failed to supply and supervise them in even the most rudimentary way. The city told people to go to the shelters, but the city did nothing to make such a move safe or healthy.
It did not send in emergency supplies of water, food, blankets, cots, medicines or anything else that would be considered essential. It didn’t even send in port-a-potties. And it left the shelters understaffed or completely un-staffed. There was no organization, no security, no city officials assigned to be in charge.
There was no provision for the people in the shelters to eat, drink, sleep, be safe or go to the bathroom. And yet the city sent tens of thousands of people to them, directly causing misery and death.
In the wake of the storm, the city’s public safety response was confused and ineffective. Blaming its failures on communications gaps, the city astoundingly had no electrical back-up for its police and fire radio system. And it apparently had completely ineffective commanders.
Police officers were able to move around in the city, but did so pointlessly, uselessly and sometimes criminally. As looters gained the upper hand, some New Orleans police joined them.
And some New Orleans police simply ran off.
Nearly one in every seven members of the New Orleans police department abandoned their posts and abandoned their city. Some even stole police vehicles to make their escape, leaving the people they were sworn to defend to suffering and despair.
The cowardice and dishonor of this is all the more obvious when contrasted with the actions of emergency workers on September 11.
The New York firefighters ran in and the New Orleans police ran out.
And the New Orleans mayor is no Rudy Giuliani.
Strength, courage and leadership were absent in New Orleans. Instead of inspiring by their example, the mayor and governor were visibly shaken and afraid. They acted like frightened children. Stupid frightened children.
The governor did little before the storm and little after the storm. She failed to use her National Guard effectively or expeditiously and she refused to let anyone else use it either. She complained that the federal government was doing nothing while refusing to authorize the federal government to operate freely in her state.
Federal officials can only work in a city with the permission and cooperation of state and local officials. That has largely been withheld. Instead, Louisiana’s politicians have made excuses for themselves and made repeated and dishonest attacks against the federal government.
And beyond Louisiana, those whose bread is buttered by racial division and distrust sowed the hateful lie of racial prejudice in the pace of the response. Completely ignoring the enormity of bringing massive amounts of equipment, supplies and aid workers into the devastated region, they told the people of New Orleans and the gullible of the country that this massive relief effort was something to be hated, not appreciated.
In the words of one idiot, “George Bush doesn’t like black people.”
And in the words of Jesse Jackson, standing with a bunch of refugees to whom he brought no water or relief: “This is the hold of a slave ship.”
And that is a lie.
What happened is that one of the largest storms ever to hit the American mainland struck the Gulf Coast. It hit a city which, incredibly, is built below sea level. It hit a city and state whose leadership fundamentally failed to prepare or effectively evacuate. It hit a city and state whose leaders then provided no effective relief for the displaced, and whose incompetence was demonstrated by the collapse of basic institutions like law enforcement.
What also happened is the United States and its people moved with compassion and speed to provide relief. Hearts, wallets and homes were opened. The largest relief effort in the nation’s history was launched and it saved thousands and thousands of people. It is now feeding, housing and clothing those people, and it will eventually reclaim and rebuild their city.
That’s what happened.
But you won’t hear that on the news.
All you’ll hear on the news is the complaint and ingratitude of people who have blood on their hands.
That would have been illegal (posse comitatus).
From the National Response Plan, under the catastrophic incidents annex:
Federal resources arriving at a Federal mobilization center or staging area remain there until requested by State/local incident command authorities, when they are integrated into the incident response effort."
I think that's pretty clear. Our Republic does not allow the Feds to just swoop in and shove the state and local government aside. Now is not the time to start that precedent; who knows where it would end?
As an American, I care VERY much about turf battles. They can make or break the goals they are tasked to achieve.
The Federal government should have taken over as soon as the Red Cross was turned back due to security concerns.
Totally wrong. I want control to remain at the local level as our founding fathers intended. I never want the federal government taking control of anything where locals have responsibility.
In this case, the feds had to take over because of an incompetent mayor and governor. This should never have to happen again and I don't want to see precedent set here. Nagin and Blanco both should be removed from office. But I guess they had the feds and other states remove the people who probably have the greatest reason to replace them.
While I see some communication and coordination problems on the federal level, they were not supposed to be the initial responders. They actually got in there when they were supposed to and did a totally magnificent job. I, for one, am proud to be an American when I see what we did in New Orleans this past week.
We know, and FEMA did make mistakes, though the calls for Chertoff's head on a platter were a BIT PREMATURE given the actual evidence of exactly who made what mistakes.
Do you realize the implications of what you are suggesting? What you are calling for is essentially a Peronist model.
It is only *after the fact* that the emotional and uneducated American people are calling for an immediate federal response to a disaster and it is only in this instance.
Would you like to see a President Al Gore or a President Hillary Clinton take over all state, city, and local functions in the case of any "disaster" in *any* state? You can just imagine how loosely "disaster" will be defined by a Gorelick-led Department of Justice.
Cool off and wait for the dust to settle. With a little time, anybody with any degree of intelligence will recognize that George Bush and the feds did a magnificent job. If they came in any earlier, you would have had a lot of dead feds, dead military, a true insurrection and a possible race war.
Mayor Numnut Nagin and Governor Bozo Blanco were so frozen and inept that the Federal Government should have seen this and delared the local and state government out of commission. Yes, it is the responsibility of the local and state levels to prepare and manage the crisis. However, when they are so bankrupt of common sense and it endangered the lives of citizens, the Federal Government should have taken over.
I believe the only reason why the Feds did not take over was that they believed it would be seen as a "Republicans versus Democrats" fight.
The bottom line is this--the two idiotic morons at the city and state level are directly responsible for thousdands losing their lives. The Feds are not to blame, but the Feds should have seen the anarchy coming due to the morons running the show and Federalized the management of the crisis at an early stage, IMO.
That is all well and good but there are laws in place that must be observed.
The POTUS cannot just take over a state unless declarations are made or very exceptional cricumstances are met. If the state government of LA was wiped out and could not respond THEN the Federals can move in quickly. If not then requests are needed for Federals from State authorities. You may think that these things can be tossed aside at a whim but they are there for good reason.
This was to be expected. It is unfortunate, but it is an egotistical proclivity of those who have passed the bar to believe that they are competent at all other things. Recent history suggests strongly that the general intelligence of the legal "community"(?) has passed its apogee and is proceeding down the right side of the Bell Curve.
Being aware that the Earl of Chesterfield advised his son to never malign an entire group of of people, lest one make the entire group their enemy, nevertheless lawyers have become so ubiquitous in US society that it is ludicrous to any longer consider them as respected professionals, but as pests. Any lay person would be well served to maintain a healthy mistrust of any lawyer beneath a feigned vernier of respect.