Posted on 02/09/2006 8:34:49 PM PST by blogblogginaway
Among the findings that emerge in the mass of documents and testimony:
¶Federal officials knew long before the storm showed up on the radar that 100,000 people in New Orleans had no way to escape a major hurricane on their own and that the city had finished only 10 percent of a plan for how to evacuate its largely poor, African-American population.
¶Mr. Chertoff failed to name a principal federal official to oversee the response before the hurricane arrived, an omission a top Pentagon official acknowledged to investigators complicated the coordination of the response. His department also did not plan enough to prevent a conflict over which agency should be in charge of law enforcement support. And Mr. Chertoff was either poorly informed about the levee break or did not recognize the significance of the initial report about it, investigators said.
¶The Louisiana transportation secretary, Johnny B. Bradberry, who had legal responsibility for the evacuation of thousands of people in nursing homes and hospitals, admitted bluntly to investigators that "we put no plans in place to do any of this."
¶Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans at first directed his staff to prepare a mandatory evacuation of his city on Saturday, two days before the storm hit, but he testified that he had not done so that day while he and other city officials struggled to decide if they should exempt hospitals and hotels from the order. The mandatory evacuation occurred on Sunday, and the delay exacerbated the difficulty in moving people away from the storm.
¶The New Orleans Police Department unit assigned to the rescue effort, despite many years' worth of flood warnings and requests for money, had just three small boats and no food, water or fuel to supply its emergency workers.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
IOW: Bush gave the order. /sarc
Casinos, Graft, Jets, and Trips cost a lot of money! Where did you THINk they were going to get it, Ghost employed Cops???
Of course not! The hearings are to bash Bush and assign blame.
Hate to be the one to tell you this, but the rules are, the first 72 hours of a disaster, the locals are responsible. They are told to have 72 hours worth of supplies, water, ice, medical services etc. available. That's what homeland security money is for. Each state has received it. Each state is supposed to have plans which includes calling out the National Guard to assist if local law enforcement is overwhelmed.
The Insurrection Act
Well put, PK!
There is so much to say about this article some good some bad. However this is one important thing that is not pointed out as to BUSH. IN the late 90's I had to evacuate from NOLA because the big one was coming. I was in the French Quarter saw a hurricane in the gulf noted it and me and my friends proceeded to party till 3am. The next morning the city was in chaos. Morial had ordered an evacuation of the city. It was madness getting out of their. At the end of the day only 50 percent had left. Louisiana learned from this and thats one reason why 80 percent of the city had evacuated and it was much more smoother this time. The point is this if that hurricane had not changed course at the last moment and hit Mississippi then it would have been much like Katrina. Now would have President Clinton gotten the blame like Bush is getting of course not. The only difference would have been would the death toll in the 90's would have been much higher. The fact that the administration knew there were problems is no different than the Clinton administration. But the NYT doesnt point that out
I hate to have to repeat myself, but right before we lost power from Katrina, CNN showed a restaurant owner who was also the pastry chef and he was passing out slices of cheesecake on Bourbon Street where the natives were all high fiving one another BECAUSE they dodged Katrina!
Moments later, the levess broke. They knew about the levees but did NOT evacuate like they were asked to do by their damn officials: that incompetent governor and clueless mayor.
Note to the infantile Big Media-
When you choose to revisit the dead, buried and re-incarnated story of 2005 concerning the storm that highlighted Blanco and Nagin's severe incomeptance in an election year...(as well as the convoluted non story of Libby)
It is my determination you aren't doing wo well in your attacks on the Patriot Act, NSA taps, Abramhoff and Judiciary. :-)
This is like when you revisit your glory days, as you consider them, involving Watergate, Woodstock and 'Nam. You consider '05 to be a fairytale in which you controlled the world, except it's now 2006 and it's looking increasingly as though you'll have to fight to even gain one or two seats in a year where you are supposed to pick up quite a few on national average.
I smell desperation.
The louisiana national guard was called out and did a superb job. The devastation though was over such a wide area. Thats what makes me mad about the blame game. It was a huge disaster and people want to assign blame where in many cases there is no blame to assign
Must have been listening to Led Zepplin during the party.
"¶Federal officials knew long before the storm showed up on the radar that 100,000 people in New Orleans had no way to escape a major hurricane on their own and that the city had finished only 10 percent of a plan for how to evacuate its largely poor, African-American population."
Awww. Where was baby doc Nagin and the Blanco? The 10% plan called for the rest of the country to provide deluxe buses. What was wrong with your buses in the lot?
"Mr. Chertoff failed to name a principal federal official to oversee the response before the hurricane arrived"
Mr Chertoff and the rest of those guys were warning the NO and LA for a week before. The feds were ready, NO and LA weren't.
"The New Orleans Police Department unit assigned to the rescue effort, despite many years' worth of flood warnings and requests for money, had just three small boats and no food, water or fuel to supply its emergency workers."
Plenty of scalawags, shoplifters and MIAs though.
well it wasnt exactly moments later. But i see your point. Also it was floodwall on a canal that night that broke not a leveee.
President Bush should order an audit of all Federal money given to Louisiana to improve the levees around New Orleans over the last 20 years. Find out what happened to the funds.
Moments to me --- moments later I lost power. I'm sorry. I wasn't clear.
Heck, I was sitting here a long way from the hurricane, in Tennessee, and I knew a big one was going to hit a town below sea level.
To say that they were telling nola residents to evac a week before is incorrect. I agree with some of the rest you say. However to be fair some things must be considered. Blanco had really just got into office. To be fair one must ask why the Former Gov who was in office for 8 years doesnt receive some blame.
I believe alot of thats being done now in the investigation of what went wrong. However, be prepared to see some suprises. There has been corruption in Louisiana in the past but nothing like talked about here.
"White House Knew of Levee Failure on Night of Storm"
No way. Just no way.
CNN correctly reported that the US Army fired missiles into the levees, Mayor Nagin is a coordinated leader (not a racist idiot), and the National Guard was ordered to shoot all black people they encounter.
Everyone knows that. Get with the program.
(sarcasm)
Utter lies. City officials were HIDING the truth of non-preparedness from their own emergency management personnel. Anyone who questioned preparedness was cut out of the loop. Money for hurricane preparedness was being diverted. Dig deep enough and the truth will be found.
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