Posted on 09/07/2005 4:37:15 AM PDT by Wiz
September 6, 2005: Using troops and military equipment for natural disasters is nothing new, but the procedure for getting them in motion is complicated by federal and local law, as well as local politics and the laws of physics (the time required to mobilize and move into position troops and supplies). New Orleans, which has been getting hammered by hurricanes and floods for over two centuries, has to start the process of obtaining federal aid by appealing to the state governor. The major delayed doing this until, literally, the last minute. The states control any National Guard troops who are not federalized (about two thirds of Louisiana troops were not federalized, and available to the governor for the recent hurricane Katrina), and the governor must order them into action for disaster relief duties. The governor also has to request that federal assistance, including outside troops (both National Guard from other states and federals). FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) is set up to expedite this. FEMA is mainly a supervisory organization. The actual relief work is done by federal and National Guard troops, as well as many public and private relief agencies. In the case of New Orleans, any requests from the Louisiana, for federal assistance, go first to a Department of Defense headquarters already established to deal with the situation (Joint Task Force, or JTF, Katrina) at Camp Shelby, Mississippi.
(Excerpt) Read more at strategypage.com ...
Great column. Thanks for posting it.
Thanks for the thread.
This article confirms that the Friday before the storm, the Governor refused to mobilize National Guard and military BEFORE the storm.
I wonder how many children and women were raped in killed in the shelters because the Governor didn't mobilize adequate security?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20050906-093817-7790r.htm
The levees
Bingo!
Exactly.
Instead of planning for the worst-case, they planned for the most-likely.
They planned...poorly.
Thanks for the link and article..just posted this on a mostly lib board..They do not understand it and won't after they read it..
I don't think they planned poorly. I think everyone here and elsewhere just wants to blame folks for Mother Nature. Did things go wrong during this catastrophe? Of course.
did you see all those school buses under water in new orleans? liberal incompetence.....the mayor needs that picture as his "legacy"
Oh yes..
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1478997/posts
Katrina, a photographic timeline: Powerful proof federal response was NOT slow (warning, many pics)
Yahoo News Photos ^ | 9/6/05
Blame Amid the Tragedy
Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin failed their constituents.
BY BOB WILLIAMS
Wednesday, September 7, 2005 12:01 a.m.
As the devastation of Hurricane Katrina continues to shock and sadden the nation, the question on many lips is, Who is to blame for the inadequate response?
As a former state legislator who represented the legislative district most impacted by the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, I can fully understand and empathize with the people and public officials over the loss of life and property.
Many in the media are turning their eyes toward the federal government, rather than considering the culpability of city and state officials. I am fully aware of the challenges of having a quick and responsive emergency response to a major disaster. And there is definitely a time for accountability; but what isn't fair is to dump on the federal officials and avoid those most responsible--local and state officials who failed to do their job as the first responders. The plain fact is, lives were needlessly lost in New Orleans due to the failure of Louisiana's governor, Kathleen Blanco, and the city's mayor, Ray Nagin.
The primary responsibility for dealing with emergencies does not belong to the federal government. It belongs to local and state officials who are charged by law with the management of the crucial first response to disasters. First response should be carried out by local and state emergency personnel under the supervision of the state governor and his emergency operations center.
The actions and inactions of Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin are a national disgrace due to their failure to implement the previously established evacuation plans of the state and city. Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin cannot claim that they were surprised by the extent of the damage and the need to evacuate so many people. Detailed written plans were already in place to evacuate more than a million people. The plans projected that 300,000 people would need transportation in the event of a hurricane like Katrina. If the plans had been implemented, thousands of lives would likely have been saved.
In addition to the plans, local, state and federal officials held a simulated hurricane drill 13 months ago, in which widespread flooding supposedly trapped 300,000 people inside New Orleans. The exercise simulated the evacuation of more than a million residents. The problems identified in the simulation apparently were not solved.
A year ago, as Hurricane Ivan approached, New Orleans ordered an evacuation but did not use city or school buses to help people evacuate. As a result many of the poorest citizens were unable to evacuate. Fortunately, the hurricane changed course and did not hit New Orleans, but both Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin acknowledged the need for a better evacuation plan. Again, they did not take corrective actions. In 1998, during a threat by Hurricane George, 14,000 people were sent to the Superdome and theft and vandalism were rampant due to inadequate security. Again, these problems were not corrected.
The New Orleans contingency plan is still, as of this writing, on the city's Web site, and states: "The safe evacuation of threatened populations is one of the principle [sic] reasons for developing a Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan." But the plan was apparently ignored.
Mayor Nagin was responsible for giving the order for mandatory evacuation and supervising the actual evacuation: His Office of Emergency Preparedness (not the federal government) must coordinate with the state on elements of evacuation and assist in directing the transportation of evacuees to staging areas. Mayor Nagin had to be encouraged by the governor to contact the National Hurricane Center before he finally, belatedly, issued the order for mandatory evacuation. And sadly, it apparently took a personal call from the president to urge the governor to order the mandatory evacuation.
The city's evacuation plan states: "The city of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas." But even though the city has enough school and transit buses to evacuate 12,000 citizens per fleet run, the mayor did not use them. To compound the problem, the buses were not moved to high ground and were flooded. The plan also states that "special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific lifesaving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedures as needed." This was not done.
The evacuation plan warned that "if an evacuation order is issued without the mechanisms needed to disseminate the information to the affected persons, then we face the possibility of having large numbers of people either stranded and left to the mercy of a storm, or left in an area impacted by toxic materials." That is precisely what happened because of the mayor's failure.
Instead of evacuating the people, the mayor ordered the refugees to the Superdome and Convention Center without adequate security and no provisions for food, water and sanitary conditions. As a result people died, and there was even rape committed, in these facilities. Mayor Nagin failed in his responsibility to provide public safety and to manage the orderly evacuation of the citizens of New Orleans. Now he wants to blame Gov. Blanco and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In an emergency the first requirement is for the city's emergency center to be linked to the state emergency operations center. This was not done.
The federal government does not have the authority to intervene in a state emergency without the request of a governor. President Bush declared an emergency prior to Katrina hitting New Orleans, so the only action needed for federal assistance was for Gov. Blanco to request the specific type of assistance she needed. She failed to send a timely request for specific aid.
In addition, unlike the governors of New York, Oklahoma and California in past disasters, Gov. Blanco failed to take charge of the situation and ensure that the state emergency operation facility was in constant contact with Mayor Nagin and FEMA. It is likely that thousands of people died because of the failure of Gov. Blanco to implement the state plan, which mentions the possible need to evacuate up to one million people. The plan clearly gives the governor the authority for declaring an emergency, sending in state resources to the disaster area and requesting necessary federal assistance.
State legislators and governors nationwide need to update their contingency plans and the operation procedures for state emergency centers. Hurricane Katrina had been forecast for days, but that will not always be the case with a disaster (think of terrorist attacks). It must be made clear that the governor and locally elected officials are in charge of the "first response."
I am not attempting to excuse some of the delays in FEMA's response. Congress and the president need to take corrective action there, also. However, if citizens expect FEMA to be a first responder to terrorist attacks or other local emergencies (earthquakes, forest fires, volcanoes), they will be disappointed. The federal government's role is to offer aid upon request.
The Louisiana Legislature should conduct an immediate investigation into the failures of state and local officials to implement the written emergency plans. The tragedy is not over, and real leadership in the state and local government are essential in the months to come. More importantly, the hurricane season is still upon us, and local and state officials must stay focused on the jobs for which they were elected--and not on the deadly game of passing the emergency buck.
Mr. Williams is president of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a free market public policy research organization in Olympia, Wash.
Are we sure that this article is acurate? I might be reading it wrong, but to me it would take some of the blame off of Blanco. It's saying that her requests for more National Guard troops had to go through FEMA. That was not my understanding.
There was another thread that said Blanco was saying that she had an agreement with New Mexico governor to send NG troops and the paperwork didn't return from Washington until Thursday. I thought that request went through the National Guard HQ which would not be under the President. This article appears to say that the request does in fact go through the federal government.
I don't know if I'm misunderstanding something or what, I'd just really like to know for a fact what the process is for that kind of request. I think the liberals can really twist this article in their favor.
More from the people who should protect New Orleans.
People in the US seem to expect federal disaster relief effort to be flawless, no mater the circumstances.
Federal emergency relief plans for hurricanes assume that the local and state governments would be competent, and that the federal government would play a supporting role at the request of the local governments. That model worked fairly well during 9/11, for last year's four hurricanes in Florida, and for the Mississippi and Alabama gulf coast regions during hurricane Katrina.
However, federal plans apparently do not provide for the contingency that the local and state governments would be worse than incompetent, and would, in fact, actually hinder response to the disaster. It took too long for the feds to adjust to the required change in role from "support of local efforts" to "primary responder" in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina.
Nevertheless, the US public expects the federal government emergency response to be flawless, no mater what the circumstances. Therefore, President Bush is, in effect, being bashed for not anticipating the inadequate performance of the New Orleans mayor and the governor of Louisiana.
At the risk of being flamed, that particular criticism may have merit. Federal emergency response, in the broad sense, should not depend on the competence of first responders. We need to rethink our model for federal disaster relief.
Right now, the feds are the third tier, following local and the state response. There needs to be the legal and structural mechanism for the feds to jump into the primary role quickly when it is apparent the the local and state governments are unable to act, or incompetent in their ability to act.
However, you may have noticed that even though the polls (and the facts) don't put the blame on GWB, the media is still reporting otherwise.
They want this to be Bush's fault soooooooo badly...
Mark for later read.
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