http://www.gov.state.la.us/ The Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation
Posted on 09/16/2005 2:34:16 PM PDT by zot
Saturday 27 August
-- Seven of the 18 Urban Search and Rescue task forces FEMA has deployed were already in the region before the storm struck Sunday. (CNN) These US&R teams exist for the purpose of structuring local emergency personnel into integrated disaster response task forces. (FEMA)
-- FEMA Director Mike Brown. "There's about 36 hours for folks to get ready. Beyond that, it's just too late. I can't emphasize enough to viewers how serious FEMA is taking this storm. The agency has dispatched teams to both states." (CNN)
6:45 pm -- President Bush declares a federal state of emergency for Louisiana. This document dated Saturday, 27 August, orders Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina, effective Friday, 26 August 2005.
9:00 pm -- Governor Blanco says the President has declared a PRE-hurricane emergency, apparently the first time this has happened, and Max Mayfield of the Hurricane Center has called her and told her it is really serious.
Sunday 28 August
8:40 am -- People showing up outside the Superdome. Louisiana National Guard not letting them in. Mayor Nagin says Superdome is for special medical needs.
9:50 am -- FEMA Director Mike Brown says they have planned staging areas to the west, east and north, and will be ready to roll the moment they can. Said the convoys of utility trucks were amazing ... NJ, PA, etc., are all enroute.
-- President Bush calls Governor Blanco and personally appeals for mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.
10:30 am -- Mayor Nagin orders mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, but exempts hotels. He says the city has no liability for the hotels. Governor Blanco, standing beside Mayor Nagin at this news conference, says President Bush called "just before we came in" and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation of the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.
12:30 pm -- Hundreds of people are outside the Superdome waiting to get in.
3:41 pm -- Fox News: Long lines of people waiting to get into the Superdome.
4:00 pm -- Traffic cameras show torrential rain soaking New Orleans
4:30 pm -- Tempers are flaring outside the Superdome. Crowd chanting, "Let Us In!" Explanation: authorities are searching everyone for weapons and drugs.
Monday 29 August
6:30 am -- Katrina makes landfall 60 miles south of New Orleans. Winds 145 mph. Slate tiles blowing off roofs. Power goes out in the French Quarter.
8:00 am -- Wind tears two holes in roof of Superdome.
12:30 pm -- Emergency teams all along the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Florida are standing by and ready to be deployed as soon as damage is assessed.
1:00 pm -- FEMA Director Mike Brown states that he has “water, ice and military MREs ready to be shipped into areas affected. Supply lines are backed up to Fort Worth and Atlanta.”
2:15 pm -- Weather clearing along the coast, but first responders are still blocked by the storm inland.
4:00 pm -- Winds reduced. CNN and other media reporting a party atmosphere in the French Quarter, saying New Orleans apparently dodged “the Big One.”
-- Red Cross [agent of FEMA] is ready to take food and water into New Orleans. Not allowed by the Director of the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, because of concerns over logistical difficulties.
Tuesday 30 August
10:30 am -- Governor Blanco declares martial law throughout the State of Louisiana, tells state highway patrol to block all entrances into the state.
11:43 am -- Martial law is being enforced. Governor Blanco has instructed the highway patrol to block off all entrances into the state. (WDSU)
-- "I heard a FEMA contracted truck driver talking on Coast to Coast last night saying he was not allowed into New Orleans by the Louisiana State Patrol on Tuesday, and he was forced to wait til Thursday with 50 other semis." (Posted on FreeRepublic.com 09/14/2005 1:13:15 PM EDT by BurbankKarl)
http://www.gov.state.la.us/ The Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation
"Is there a clinical term for fear of lead poisoning?"
Yes there is. It's called "Gettin' your head shot off."
Bump.
The FEMA response was not slow. They were rolling two days before the storm arrived.
-- Why is Bush taking the blame?
-- I hope the truth comes out.
If President Bush points this out, the Dems will say he is just trying to shift the blame (as they already have). By taking the blame, he has defused a lot of their attack.
I think President Bush believes in the truth and trusts others who believe in the truth to bring it out.
In yesterday's Chicago Sun-Times, Richard Roeper called Jefferson Parish, LA president Aaron Broussard's tearful outburst, shown September 4th on Meet the Press, "One of the defining media moments of all the hurricane [Katrina] coverage":
"The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in a St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, 'Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?' And he said, 'Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday.' And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night.""
Like a lot of people, I didn't think Broussard's story passed the "smell test". We were right: He was lying.MSNBC's Dateline web site, September 5th:
On Sunday, America met 56-year-old Jefferson Parish president Aaron Broussard in an extraordinary display of raw emotion on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when he talked about a colleague whose mother was trapped in a nursing home awaiting rescue.
The man he was talking about is Thomas Rodrigue, who told “Dateline” that his 92-year-old mother was one of 32 elderly people found dead at the St. Rita’s nursing home.
September 7th, New York Times reported on the deaths at St. Rita's:
St. Bernard Parish officials say that 32 of the home's roughly 60 residents died on Aug. 29, more than a week ago.
August 29th was a Monday. Was Broussard confused about the day on which Rodrigue's mother died?
Susan Candiottoti, reporting on the September 8th broadcast of Newsnight With Aaron Brown:
CANDIOTTI: Sunday night [ed: August 28th], as Katrina struck, Rodrigue was 30 miles away directing emergency personnel for Jefferson Parish. He called the nursing home in St. Bernard Parish again, pleading with officials to get the residents out. He was told they were going to try.
RODRIGUE: I called the St. Bernard officials again and, you know, told them that, you know, they've got to get, you know, these people out. And they said they notified them, and that they weren't -- they refused to leave. And I said, "Well, you need to send the sheriff's office down there and make them leave." And he said, "I'm doing everything I can."
So, Thomas Rodrigue says he was calling the St. Rita's nursing home, and St. Bernard Parish officials on Sunday, August 28th, asking them to send the local sheriff to evacuate the nursing home. Katrina hit St. Bernard Parish on Monday, August 29th, killing his mother.
Broussard claims Rodrigue was talking to his mother for four days after she died, promising her some nebulous "cavalry" was on the way. His story doesn't jibe with the reporting of CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, or even Thomas Rodrigue's own account.
Why would he lie about such a thing?
Aaron Broussard's crocodile tears came at the tail-end of a tirade against FEMA, in response to a question from Tim Russert asking whether the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Loisiana could have been "more forceful, much more effective and much more organized in evacuating the area." Just before his "breakdown," Broussard said:
Who is the "they" he's referring to? It's worth noting that, according to the State of Loisiana's Emergency Preparedned Plan (PDF warning)local officials are responsible for evacuating residents of the various parishes before and during the early stages of the aftermath of a hurricane."Sir, they were told like me, every single day, "The cavalry's coming," on a federal level, "The cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming.""
Was Broussard (a Democrat) trying to score political points (and possibly deflect blame away from local government officials) by blaming federal agencies for failing to respond in a timely manner when people's lives were in danger?If that was his intention, it worked (at least at first). Russert didn't challenge him, even when he made wild accusations of FEMA "cutting [his parish's] emergency [communication] lines" and ordering the Coast Guard not to give them badly needed fuel.
Since any blame for this should be placed on Lousiana state and/or local government officials, any OUTRAGE or RIGHTEOUS indignation should be directed toward them. But don't hold your breath waiting for Tim Russert to issue a correction.
To their credit, even Lies.com issued a correction after initially reporting on Broussard's accusations:
So, assuming the MSNBC story is accurate, Broussard’s story was at least significantly embellished... Broussard, for all the apparent sincerity in his emotional on-air breakdown, was willing to lie in order to make his story work better as political theater, which in turn makes it harder for me to credit the rest of the slow-FEMA-response anecdotes he described.
I won't be as kind. At best, I think Aaron Broussard is the political equivalent of a price gouger; taking advantage of a tragedy in order to gain political capital. He may very well be purposely trying to blame someone's death on an innocent party (or parties). Either way, it's despicable.
See also: Heh.
Other Katrina Myth posts: "Homeland Security" Wouldn't Let Red Cross Deliver Food and Water to Katrina Victims
UPDATE: Right Thoughts smelled a rat here (no offense to rats) as well, and has been tracking this story.
UPDATE II: I sent a link to this post to Richard Roper, with a short note saying:
It looks like (Aaron Broussard's) story doesn't match the facts as reported by CNN, MSNBC, Dateline, the New York Times, or even the son of the woman who was killed.
Last night (9/14/05) I received the following response:
thanks john, i appreciate the info.
Roeper is now on the record as knowing the facts surrounding the story Broussard recounted to Tim Russert on Meet the Press. I hope he informs his readers.
UPDATE III: I made a mistake on the date of the Sunday noted in the Newsnight With Aaron Brown interview with Thomas Rodrigue. It was the 28th, not the 27th. I neglected to link the transcript as well, that's been fixed. Neither of these mistakes would have changed the subtance of the post.
bump
Good Lord! They'd rather lie when the truth would be better! And the MSM just gobbles it up--if it seems that it would make this administration look bad! Big surprise!
He gets the Dan Rather award
3:30 pm -- Governor Blanco says all of New Orleans must be evacuated, including hotels, the Superdome and other shelters.
In case this isn't in your time-line. Earlier in the thread you referred to her Emergency Evacuation by Buses Executive Order KBB 2005-25, dated September 2, 2005. That's the only EO regarding buses I recall seeing when I first checked the LA governor's site last week. On Sunday Freeper GoLightly pointed out that there was another Executive Order entitled the Emergency Evacuation by Buses dated August 31. The numbers of these EOs are out of order...the September 2 is KBB 2005-25. The one dated August 31 is KBB 2005-31.
Now I suppose that there may be an explanation for this sequential mess up. But there is no explanation for her not issuing the order on Tuesday. I believe it was her responsibility to evacuate those in last refuge shelters out of the city, to designated shelters. It was also her responsibility to communicate the plan to the national news media who kept sticking microphones in people's faces and delighting in the fact that nobody knew what was going on.
"He listened to the rat lawyers trying protect the union and those worrying about a bus in a wreck with refugees and a non union driver."
IOW, he was being a typical 'Rat politician.
"If the governor, the chief of N O's police and Nagin had done what the plan had laid out, most of the tragedy would have been avoided."
Oh...I totally agree with you there.
And, it's a dang shame he didn't have the guts to publicly insist on carrying out the plan.
Your Katrina Live threads are VERY useful and important. They are near-real-time reporting from a large variety of sources. By preserving them, you have established the best timeline archive of facts I have seen anywhere.
"Again, he was frantic, but could do nothing without the go-ahead from BlanKO."
I think the biggest mistake he made was not going public,
loudly and clearly, with his apprehensions, and to insist
that the plan be fully implemented.
It appeared to me that he was the only one who seemed to
understand the magnitude of the storm.
Watch them move on to the Roberts's hearings or create a new non crisis.
We'll never shut them up or get them to tell the truth, but as we continue to expose their lies we can hope that fewer and fewer people will believe them.
Good work, SA. Maybe the New York Post would be interested. The guy's breakdown got on my nerves.
As you recall, I noted he was being interviewed again on TV a few days ago, opposite LA Atty General Foli, and Broussard was blaming the levee break on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He's a real stupid, loose cannon.
But more than that, I just wonder if there were some conference calls among Nagin, Blanco, Landrieu and Broussard to strategize deflecting attention from their own ineptitude onto the federal administration. After all, they have willing accomplices in the media aching for a good anti-admin story....
Thanks Louisiana Officials |
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