Posted on 09/17/2005 10:35:29 AM PDT by THEUPMAN
RITA BEAMISH Associated Press Writer
As far back as eight years ago, Congress ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to develop a plan for evacuating New Orleans during a massive hurricane, but the money instead went to studying the causeway bridge that spans the city's Lake Ponchartrain, officials say.
The outcome provides one more example of the government's failure to prepare for a massive but foreseeable catastrophe, said the lawmaker who helped secure the money for FEMA to develop the evacuation plan.
"They never used it for the intended purpose," said former Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La. "The whole intent was to give them resources so they could plan an evacuation of New Orleans that anticipated that a very large number of people would never leave."
(Excerpt) Read more at ap.onlineathens.com ...
Some posts on this thread you might find interesting.
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http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/plans/eopindex.htm
STATE OF LOUISIANA - EMERGENCY OPERATIONS PLAN <- html version
II. SITUATION AND ASSUMPTIONSThe general impression I get reading this plan, the FEMA plan; and noting the presence of a National Incident Management System (NIMS) and Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC); is that coordinating of assistance through ANY level of government is a particularly complex bureaucratic puzzle. No wonder Wal-Mart and others are more nimble.B. Assumptions
1. The State is primarily responsible for natural and technological emergency preparedness, but has a shared responsibility with the Federal government for national security preparedness.
5. The initial actions of prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery operations are conducted by local government. Local authorities will exhaust their resources, and then use mutual aid agreements with volunteer groups, the private sector and/or neighboring parishes.
6. State assistance will supplement local efforts and federal assistance will supplement State and local efforts when it is clearly demonstrated that it is beyond local and State capability to cope with the emergency/disaster.
III. CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS
B. EXECUTION AND IMPLEMENTATION:
The Governor has delegated to the Director of the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (LOHSEP) the responsibility for implementation of this plan. The Director will implement this plan and procedures when the situation warrants. Should the Governor declare a state of emergency, the plan will automatically be activated.
IV. ORGANIZATION AND ASSIGNMENT OF RESPONSIBILITIES
A. Organization
By direction of the Governor, each State department, agency, commission, special district and board with emergency or disaster responsibilities, along with local government, will have all-hazard emergency operations plans and implementing procedures. Authority and responsibility are to be as decentralized as possible to field units and to individuals responsible for actual performance of operations. State personnel must be trained in their responsibilities and working relationships and must have the authority to respond to emergency or disaster requests from the LOHSEP Director.
B. Responsibilities:
The Governor has the overall responsibility for emergency management in the state and is assisted in these duties by the LOHSEP Director. Tasks for those elements listed which have been given a primary or secondary shared responsibility for emergency/ disaster situations are contained in Attachment 3, Emergency Support Function (ESF) Responsibility Chart.
D. Federal
The Federal Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has the responsibility for the coordination of federal emergency/disaster operations and resources in support of state and local government capabilities, and for directing and coordinating the delivery of federal disaster relief assistance programs. Assistance efforts are organized and coordinated according to the policies and procedures detailed in the National Response Plan (NRP), dated 2004 and the National Incident Management System (NIMS), dated 2004.
V. DIRECTION AND CONTROL
A. The Governor is responsible for the coordinated delivery of all emergency services, public, quasi-volunteer, and private, during a natural, technological and/or national security emergency/disaster situation. The Governor has delegated the LOHSEP Director the authority to implement this plan, and to direct State-level emergency operations through the regularly constituted governmental structure.
B. In the event of an emergency/disaster, the needed elements of State government will be in the State EOC located at 7667 Independence Boulevard in Baton Rouge. Should the primary EOC become inoperative, isolated, and/or unusable, the LOHSEP Director shall issue relocation instructions to deployment teams for the preparation of the alternate State EOC at Camp Beauregard or at another location to be determined at the time.
C. Each State department or agency shall be under the general control of its respective Secretary/Director, etc., through his or her designated emergency representative. The emergency representative shall be empowered to make decisions, and expend resources (personnel, materials, supplies, equipment, facilities and funds) in providing operational and technical support to State and Local governments during any emergency/disaster incident.
D. Local governments are responsible under all applicable laws, executive orders, proclamations, rules, regulations, and ordinances for emergency management within their respective jurisdiction. Local emergency management organizations shall function from designated EOC's and are subject to the direction and control of the executive heads of government, in coordination with the Governor and the LOHSEP Director.
E. Upon activation of the State EOC, the operations staff and state agencies shall insure that the necessary personnel and resources are available. Those agency representatives should bring or have pre-positioned plans, procedures, resource inventories, supplies, and notification lists needed to facilitate emergency/disaster operations.
VII. ADMINISTRATION AND LOGISTICS
I. The State of Louisiana is a signatory to the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC), as stated in the Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act of 1993 as amended. If an emergency becomes too widespread or serious for parish and state resources, the Director LOHSEP will process a request for assistance through EMAC.
SUPPLEMENTS PUBISHED SEAPARATLY:
1A - Southeast Louisiana Hurricane and Evacuation Plan
1B - Southwest Louisiana Hurricane and Evacuation Plan
And the priority item that we chrge government with, maintaining civil order, is one thing that it did not do well.
Bump
What concerns me about that link, is it seems to have popped up after the hurricane re the date.
It is amazing that Walmart and Home Depot can respond massively and quicker than the various levels of government.
It was obvious that before, during and after the disaster, the worthless governor was being to told to resist all types of help unless she was in control of it.
You and me both. I won't hold my breath as it is not known how much teflon coating each DIMwit has NOR is it known if a scapegoat has already been picked, paid, and ready to be trotted out as the "he/she is to blame". Seen that song played one too many times in south Loo-see-ana. For a minute or two it almost looked like Blanco was gonna toss NADA-gin out for sacrificing...then it looked like Blanco was the sacrificial one(she'd never know what was happening IMHO). AND it almost looked(s) like a very small portion of the MSM started being honest for a split second or two.
Not only should heads roll, but monies should be recovered. Katrina's waters have washed aside some of the covering over decades of graft and corruption.
No wonder the DemonRATs want another 9/11 commission with Witt on it; they need to once again cover their own asses.
BINGO
FEMA did drop the ball, but it was the Clinton FEMA controlled by James Lee Witt (who is now the DNC sockpuppet currently installed in Governor Blanco's butt).
Is there no corruption that cannot be traced back to a Democrat?
The 2005 plan is a draft, AFAIK, and has not yet been formally adopted. Just the same, it is useful for scoping out the intended division of responsibility and authority.
On a separate subject, here is a pretty good introduction to the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which is one of the tools at the governor's disposal.
http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/downloads/EMAC_Full_Precourse_04_14_05.pdf <- 2.5 Mb
No surprise that private industry can move more quickly than the government. But we're about to get anther increase in government bureacracy in the aftermath of Katrina.
Now I'm off to see if "National Incident Management System" provides any illumination into how the politicians and bureacrats planned to implement their promises to cooperate with each other.
Thanks
I bet Louisiana public workers were somewhere in a transition to the "federally mandated" NIMS management protocol for disaster response.
http://www.fema.gov/nims/nims_compliance.shtm
The NIMS provides a consistent, flexible, and adjustable national framework within which government and private entities at all levels can work together to manage domestic incidents, regardless of their cause, size, location, or complexity. This flexibility applies across all phases of incident management: prevention, preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation.2. Standardization.
The NIMS provides a set of standardized organizational structuressuch as the Incident Command System (ICS), multiagency coordination systems, and public information systemsas well as requirements for processes, procedures, and systems designed to improve interoperability among jurisdictions and disciplines in various areas, including: training; resource management; personnel qualification and certification; equipment certification; communications and information management; technology support; and continuous system improvement.C. OVERVIEW.
The NIMS integrates existing best practices into a consistent, nationwide approach to domestic incident management that is applicable at all jurisdictional levels and across functional disciplines in an all-hazards context. Six major components make up this systems approach. Each is addressed in a separate chapter of this document. Of these components, the concepts and practices for Command and Management (Chapter II) and Preparedness (Chapter III) are the most fully developed, reflecting their regular use by many jurisdictional levels and agencies responsible for incident management across the country. Chapters IV-VII, which cover Resource Management, Communications and Information Management, Supporting Technologies, and Ongoing Management and Maintenance, introduce many concepts and requirements that are also integral to the NIMS but that will require further collaborative development and refinement over time.
Funny how no one seems to know how $500,000 was mis= directed. Reminds me of how no one knew how Livington was hired during the Clinton administration (FBI Filegate)
It seems that no records were kept as to where the money went....only government organizations can get away with that.
Bill Clinton was hired to study that bridge. Sox just reminded me. He was payed the full amount and bought a pair of binoculars and a portable sink....
Also, I don't see why I-10 is not 3 lanes in each direction from the Texas-Louisiana border all the way to the Alabama-Florida border. There is enough traffic... If they would have spent some money on this, that would have been for a real evacuation route (I-49), and I-10 tends to get jammed along the Gulf coast when these storms crop up...
Would not matter when the interstate does not have all lanes headed in the OUT direction. Kocal government failure.
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