Posted on 09/06/2005 5:56:44 PM PDT by bobsunshine
WASHINGTON - The government's disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security employees to the region - and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.
Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.
Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged Tuesday the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged. Brown's memo to Chertoff described Katrina as "this near catastrophic event" but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, "Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities."
The initial responses of the government and Brown came under escalating criticism as the breadth of destruction and death grew. President Bush and Congress on Tuesday pledged separate investigations into the federal response to Katrina. "Governments at all levels failed," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said Brown had positioned front-line rescue teams and Coast Guard helicopters before the storm. Brown's memo on Aug. 29 aimed to assemble the necessary federal work force to support the rescues, establish communications and coordinate with victims and community groups, Knocke said.
Instead of rescuing people or recovering bodies, these employees would focus on helping victims find the help they needed, he said.
'Time for Blame'
"There will be plenty of time to assess what worked and what didn't work," Knocke said. "Clearly there will be time for blame to be assigned and to learn from some of the successful efforts."
Brown's memo told employees that among their duties, they would be expected to "convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public."
"FEMA response and recovery operations are a top priority of the department and as we know, one of yours," Brown wrote Chertoff. He proposed sending 1,000 Homeland Security Department employees within 48 hours and 2,000 within seven days.
Knocke said the 48-hour period suggested for the Homeland employees was to ensure they had adequate training. "They were training to help the life-savers," Knocke said.
Employees required a supervisor's approval and at least 24 hours of disaster training in Maryland, Florida or Georgia. "You must be physically able to work in a disaster area without refrigeration for medications and have the ability to work in the outdoors all day," Brown wrote.
The same day Brown wrote Chertoff, Brown also urged local fire and rescue departments outside Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi not to send trucks or emergency workers into disaster areas without an explicit request for help from state or local governments. Brown said it was vital to coordinate fire and rescue efforts.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said Tuesday that Brown should step down.
After a senators-only briefing by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other Cabinet members, Sen. Charles E. Schumer said lawmakers weren't getting their questions answered.
"What people up there want to know, Democrats and Republicans, is what is the challenge ahead, how are you handling that and what did you do wrong in the past," said Schumer, D-N.Y.
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said the administration is "getting a bad rap" for the emergency response.
"This is the largest disaster in the history of the United States, over an area twice the size of Europe," Stevens said. "People have to understand this is a big, big problem."
Meanwhile, the airline industry said the government's request for help evacuating storm victims didn't come until late Thursday afternoon. The president of the Air Transport Association, James May, said the Homeland Security Department called then to ask if the group could participate in an airlift for refugees.
It is NOT FEMA's role to be the first responder, especially to individuals.
If you've not had first hand experience with them (I have) or do not know anything about Emergency Response Plans (I do) then you problaby don't know who has what role and what those roles are.
If you watch football with the same acumen you've demonstrated here, you'll probably blame the kicker for allowing a touchdown on a draw play.
I'm sure he's also been told that the Red Cross workers are not First Responders.
Facts mean little to this disruptive newbie.
If it wasn't such good exercise smack him around I'd have asked for him to be banned some time ago.
Well let's see. This is from FEMA:
# Save lives and protect the health and safety of the public, responders, and recovery workers;
# Ensure security of the homeland; # Prevent an imminent incident(seems the dome happening was an imminent incident), including acts of terrorism, from occurring; # Protect and restore critical infrastructure and key resources; # Conduct law enforcement investigations to resolve the incident, apprehend the perpetrators, and collect and preserve evidence for prosecution and/or attribution; #" Protect property and mitigate damages and impacts to individuals, communities, and the environment; and # Facilitate recovery of individuals, families, businesses, governments, and the environment.
FEMA They are to take a proactive role in accomplishing the above goals. Although the local plans are primary, where there is nothing holding them back from their proactive duties, they should take action as per above goals and duties.
"They showed forsight in staging close so that they were ready, knowing it was going to be bad, but it's definitely not their responsibility for stock the superdome before the storm hit."
Number one above says save lives/health whatever of the public. A reasonable man and a good Boy Scout would conclude the crackheads were risking lives and given your general duties, the prudent thing to do would be to compensate. As far as positioning supplies nearby goes, the best place is where they are ready at hand and protected by the facilities that protect the user/consumer. Placing the supplies nearby obviously gambles their safekeeping and availability. History shows they were unavailable.
"The locals are responsible for that."
Sure, but just in case someone would mistake that as an exclusive responsibility, I posted FEMAs duties and objectives here.
"How could FEMA have known the locals wouldn't follow their own disaster plan?"
FEMA pretends to be experts at the game. The feds and FEMA require and provide all sorts of bureaucratic training and certification programs for every aspect of planning, first responder activity and followup. If the clowns in charge don't have a grasp of the overview and understand it, the money and time spent on the dept is pure waste.
I don't value bureaucratic training programs, planning your every move and certification of every nitpicking task. I value the ability to get things done and to minimize harm and loss. Brown should have had folks under him that brought the LA situation to his attn long ago. Being that 'canes are one of the main causes of natural disaster, Brown should have pondered it all himself and noted LA's incompetence. IMO, FEMA spends too much time with nitpicking bureaucratic BS, then with enabling folks to deal with problems.
"Does anyone know whether sending people to the Superdome and Convention Center was part of the official pre-hurricane plan, or did the mayor just come up with that idea at the last minute? And was any police protection provided at those two sites?"
This was an emergency shelter for the duaration of the hurricane only - people were advised to bring stuff for three days as non would be provided.
The idea was to have them out of there by then - and not to have gerlado there because Chertoff "Didn't know till Thurs"
Ok...soooo......Brown should have known that Nagin and Blanco were incompetent!
LOL...You're actully blaming Brown for not eing a mind reader or fortune teller!
That's about as bright as thinking that a coach should know that his entire first team and their replacements would be injured or outmatched so he SHOULD have had a first rate third team to start in their place!!!
Yet again, you're not accurate. Food and water was provided, just not enough.
"So tell me again how hanging a solid performer out to dry (scapegoating) teaches us about "personal responsibility?" (This one should be good. Where's the popcorn?)"
Chertoff and Brown are paper pushers - they have no command experience. They were oblivious to the dya by day needs.
Look - we have a couple dogs here that don't hunt - they get to come back from the field with the rest.
What should he have said -- in your opinion?
zzzzzzzzzzz
Did you check with Nagin and Blanco, who were the two people who had a sworn responsibility to know about the problem prior to Thursday?
FEMA is not a first responder. FEMA does not rescue.
They are the know it all fed agency that certifies rescuers. W/o their certs you're not allowed to operate. So if everybody's mama and big daddy FEMA can't percieve, orient and compensate to minimize loss, then they're just a bunch of pretenders. see #663
I'm sure that you are referring to the local New Orleans police department, the folks who are in fact -- first responders.
Never trust your life to a bureaucracy. I don't care how well it's run.
That's correct.
hours? five hours?
This is the best they can do?
If he waited five seconds the faux outrage would be there.
So we have gone from five DAYS delay to five HOURS delay.
Notices how it is creeping into confirming the fact that on the 27th Bush called the governor and how supplies and forces were pre positioned.
I supposed the democrats object to bathroom breaks too.
wrong-o again. I'm damned glad you hold no important position(and now I know why)
Which was a gross error in judgment on the part of the local officials, as has been explained to you previously.
All of those bullets above appear to be during the response phase of an incident, not the pre-incident phase. The only one that could be construed as preemptive is number 3, where you're attributing to them the ability to forsee the chaos and mayhem that would result from a levee break after the main part of the storm had passed, trapping people in the dome for days.
I can't get on the DHS website, it's hung up. But I stand by my assertion that FEMA's duties are to manage an emergency that has already happened. They are not first responders.
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