Very lucky to catch it? How do you come to that conclusion? The logic escapes me. I recall hearing it on CNN repeatedly Aug 31 to September 1. I have been following events fairly closely and those reports got my attention. It was the first time I had heard that people were going to the convention center in addition to the Superdome.
I have been involved in some evacuations overseas. It was not unusual to have the people back in Washington tell us what was going on from watching CNN before we reported it back to them.
FYI: We now know that the Red Cross attempted to position supplies in both places prior to the Hurricane and immediately afterwards. The LA Office of Homeland Security prevented it because they didn't want them to become "magnets" to attract people. Obviously, the Red Cross was aware of the convention center as a place of refuge.
Don't let me stand in the way of your FEMA bashing. If you have more 'mainstream' reports from August 31, 2005, then by all mean post them.
You missed my point, but why should I be surprised. First, I never mentioned FEMA or bashed them. I blame it on the Feds, including the WH. Once conditions at the Convention Center and the Superdome were known, they should have gone in regardless of what the Governor and the Mayor wanted. You save lives and then fight the bureaucratic battle. Having life saving supplies held up at the very doorstep of the city because of a bureaucratic turf battle is unacceptable.
You are right. If I was running FEMA I would have sent in 300 helicopters to help rescue those in danger of drowning. Wait a minute . . . that is what FEMA did. Sometimes there just aren't enough helicopters.
They didn't have to send in helicopters, they had vehicles that could reach both places, the same way the MSM went in there. When you have tens of thousands of people congregated in a couple of locations, it is far easier to meet their needs than plucking them off of roofs one at a time. We had the resources to do both.
Overall, the federal response has been magnificent. No other country in the world could have done what we did. The biggest mistake we made was not recognizing the significance, humanitarian and PR wise, of what was happening at the Superdome and Convention Center. The MSM blew it up out of proportion and the feds made it worse by letting it fester.
I blame it on Chertoff and Brown, two lawyers who were neither leaders or managers. They had the President negotiating with Blanco using some legal agreement and asking her to sign it. They failed to understand the need to take action immediately and had a tin ear when it came to understanding the political aspect of it.
The President understood immediately and expressed his dissatisfaction with the slowness of the response. He immediately visited the area two times in a several day span and is going back again shortly. Cabinet members soon followed. Gen Honore filled the leadership vacuum with his 8 mile long convoy and finally, we had the image of someone taking charge.
>>I recall hearing it on CNN repeatedly Aug 31 to September 1<<
Now I know why I didn't hear about it until Thursday. I never watch CNN.
>> They failed to understand the need to take action immediately and had a tin ear when it came to understanding the political aspect of it. <<
I am not sure if that is true or not (I know the MSM would like us to believe that). What I do know is that FEMA is not a first responder, nor does it have the authority to just "move in and take over". I personally do not want them to have that authority. Just think what a FEMA-like organization with unlimited authority in a "disaster" could do in the hands of a tyrant like Clinton.
Besides, FEMA's response was good for a disaster of this magnitude. The real 'disaster' occurred at the state and local level, during the initial evacuation and the first response to the disaster.
The following link explains the DOD Joint Task Force(Honore's) response and its relationship to FEMA:
http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/2005/tr20050831-3842.html
Note in particular this statement from Asst Sec of Defense McHale:
"Obviously, the first point we emphasize is that law enforcement and local security is, first and foremost, a matter of civilian law enforcement capabilities. We in the military provide certain backup capabilities, but the first line of defense against criminal conduct is provided by our law enforcement agencies at all levels of government -- state, local and federal.
If, for some reason it does appear the level of criminal threat exceeds the immediate capability of civilian law enforcement, the National Guard in state status, under command and control of the Governor -- not under command and control of the Secretary of Defense -- can work side by side, lawfully, with civilian law enforcement agencies, police officers, to maintain public order."
I get it. So did the real Philip Freneau.
In his 1792 editorial satire in the National Gazette newspaper, Rules for changing a limited republican government into an unlimited hereditary one, Philip Freneau outlined a series of methods the tyrant could use to circumvent the limitations placed on government by the Constitution, and, thus, create Unconstitutional law. One method could be characterized as a form of "crisis" management, outlined by Freneau as follows:
First, "As the novelty and bustle of inaugurating the government will for some time keep the public mind in a heedless and unsettled state, let the press during this period be busy in propagating the doctrines of monarchy and aristocracy. For this purpose it will be particularly useful to confound a mobbish democracy with a representative republic, that by exhibiting all the turbulent examples and enormities of the former, an odium may be thrown on the character of the latter."
Next, to promote a crisis, "... review all the civil contests, convulsions, factions, broils, squabbles, bickerings, black eyes, and bloody noses of ancient, middle and modern ages; caricature them into the most frightful forms and colors that can be imagined; and unfold one scene of the horrible tragedy after another till the people be made, if possible, to tremble at their own shadows."
Next, give the crisis a name, but, "... in order to render success the more certain, it will be of special moment to give the most plausible and popular name that can be found to the power that is to be usurped. It may be called, for example, a power for the common safety or the public good, or, "the general welfare.""
Finally, "If the people should not be too much enlightened, the name will have a most imposing effect. It will escape attention that it means, in fact, the same thing with a power to do anything the government pleases "in all cases whatsoever." To oppose the power may consequently seem to be ignorant, and be called by the artful, opposing the "general welfare," and may be cried down under that deception."