Posted on 09/14/2005 8:25:34 PM PDT by Uncle Joe Cannon
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In his first extensive interview since resigning as FEMA director on Monday under intense criticism, Mr. Brown declined to blame President Bush or the White House for his removal or for the flawed response.
"I truly believed the White House was not at fault here," he said.
He focused much of his criticism on Governor Blanco, contrasting what he described as her confused response with far more agile mobilizations in Mississippi and Alabama, as well as in Florida during last year's hurricanes.
But Mr. Brown's account, in which he described making "a blur of calls" all week to Mr. Chertoff, Mr. Card and Mr. Hagin, suggested that Mr. Bush, or at least his top aides, were informed early and repeatedly by the top federal official at the scene that state and local authorities were overwhelmed and that the overall response was going badly.
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(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Good find!
If Scarborough is to be even slightly believed there is some serious problems in Mississippi with FEMA right now and people are very frustrated... putting it into Homeland was a mistake.... were they in Homeland last year when they paid out $30 million in Hurricane claims to Miami Dade area when it hadn't been affected by any hurricanes.
They had a trial run during hurricane Ivan. This wasn't exactly new territory for them.
NO has a greater number of police, firemen, and EMT personnel than Brown had in all of FEMA. Everyone is screaming FEMA at fault, FEMA is not, is not, a first responder, (no choppers, no boats, no police, troops or security of any kind) they can only move up their resources and coordinate federal assets at the behest "OF" local and state government. (Nagin was out to lunch, screaming his putrid arse off for the calvary and the Blank one refused to do so) Brown (FEMA) had no factual facts, thanks to everyone losing their heads (or as in MSM, LA and NO officials, their freaken minds) how the hell can FEMA do much of anything if no one is relaying viable information?
It is MHO, the hysterically screaming media did more to confuse, confound and compound the problems more than any other single entity during the crisis time of the the disaster, period.
The sad thing is, all that is now lauded as a great success, (after the immediate crisis has past) was put into place by Brown. It is damned easy to play act the hero when one is not in the swamp up to their ass in gators.
Why didn't you know that Bush was Supreme Ruler of the Universe? He can do anything and if he doesn't it is because he doesn't like you.
It's one helluva lot easier to evac people before the city is flooded, rather than waiting for choppers to cherry pick people off their roofs.
Bingo, that's my thinking. The real answer to the question of why she didn't have any shelters to bus them to(when it has been part of the comprehensive evac plan for several years) is probably the biggest scandal of all. Does anyone in the media dare pursue it?
"--A 50-year-old lawyer and Republican activist who joined FEMA as general counsel in 2001, Mr. Brown said he had been hobbled by limitations on the power of the agency to command needed resources.
With only 2,600 employees nationwide, he said, FEMA must rely on state workers, the National Guard, private contractors and other federal agencies to supply manpower and equipment."
The government should have been there to stop the hurricane. /sarcasm
No chaos in MS and AL because of efficient leadership.
Disaster after another in LA because of incompetent and clueless leadership. Very elementary, my dear... Democrats.
I guess the point is I am trying to make is that relocating about 1 million people in 48 hours is no easy task at all. Local officials are right when they say this was the most successful evac ever. I evaced during hurricane George and it was chaos. Also the State plan worked well to a large degree. Its just not Nagin but various Parish Presidents that have to evacuate their Parishes in a certain order that NOLA had to deal with. I It appears that alot more people got out of NOLA than previously thought. If anyone told me a year ago that you could evac 80 percent of the city while at the same time getting everyone out of the area in the other parishes in 48 hours I would have laughed my head off. As to Blanco? Well I highly suspect that if this happened under the previous Gov (Rep Mike Foster) the same thing would have happened if not worse.
The biggest problem with this fiasco, in terms of Fed responses, was PR. Brown looks like a nice Khaki pants wear man, but he doesn't exactly inspire confidence in a time of crisis. The guy who finally turned the PR situation around was the cigar chomping General. He looked like he was in charge.
Totally agree about Nagin. The fact is... Nagin is, in some respects, like Michael Bloomberg... He switched from being a Republican to a Dem for the sole purpose of getting involved in NOLA politics. The opposite was true for Bloomie with NYC.
I think Bob Livingston might be a natural to handle the reconstruction. The money should definitely not be handed to Blanco.
I not so sure they were not available. I saw the emergency shelters going up in Shreveport before it even hit. The problem is besides when the First Lady traveled to Lafayette the only other major city they got to yet is Baton Rouge.
the media that is
He is always misunderestimated.
Nah, I don't think it was a "set-up", I think Babineaux Blanco just was not up to it.
Do I smell a TROLL????
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