Katrina Live Threads, Part XV

Various ^ | 4 September 2005 | Various

[NautiNurse]

Heard this afternoon that Greece has offered two cruise ships too.

[Brad’s Gramma]

WHOOO HOOOOOO!!!!! Thanks for checking in. :)

[Txsleuth]

Way to go!!!!! You are doing great----and I love that you are posting these updates to us.

Make an appointment to get gas, huh? Genius...that is a good idea.

I am so glad that things are going better for you...and will pray that you find some of the missing people alive and well, real soon..

Please keep us up to date on your "adventures"...ok?

[Soul Seeker]

Republican Senator from LA that did the near impossible by winning, like, 51%? of the vote last year avoiding a runoff that LA has if someone doesn't have a majority of the vote for a candidate.

And a severe disappointment proving himself to be just another politician looking to save his own skin then stand for Truth and the people that could have used someone interested in saving them, over casting blame.

[TexKat]

I was just looking at pics of the aftermath at the Superdome a couple of hours ago on one of the cable stations. I pity those that have the responsibility of cleaning that place up.

[Ellesu]

School buses will be rolling in the am. I wonder if they have been washed, inside and out.

[Txsleuth]

I have thought for a long time that Bush should have Karen Hughes become his PR person....she is good!

[tomkat]

Hiya !    

[TheSpottedOwl]

I make no assumptions and do not apologize for taking shots at Jessie, Big Al, NAACP and Congressional Black Congress and liberal race baiting enablers.

No apology necessary. I can't stand any of them either. I just wanted to say that black and white will pull together to help out. You know, normal people ;-) The MSM is just doing what they're paid to do. Spin and spit on the President. I either mute, or read posts here.

[NautiNurse]

Welcome back! Another ray of sunshine...prayers answered.

[gpapa]

Confusion once again.

It is a little early for a thorough post-mortem analysis, but a couple of thoughts come to mind.

To be sure, at least so far, FEMA has not performed as expected, but in some cases neither have the States or local communities. The President, who seemed to be in a surly mood at the time, admitted as much publicly. Others in this Forum are better equipped than I to describe how the President could step in and take over and federalize portions of Louisiana, without the consent of the Governor of that State. While the President formally offered that option to the Governor on Friday last, we do not know exactly when that offer was first made, verbally or otherwise. Given the critical nature of the assets in New Orleans and nearby it may have well been presented as an option early on. One can certainly speculate that the protection of the Port of New Orleans, the economic highway that is the Mississippi, and critical energy infrastructure in the Gulf region is a national security concern. As it turned out, a couple of days after the hurricane hit land it was apparent the infrastructure of the oil and gas facilities in the Gulf and land based facilities were fairly intact, with some exceptions, e. g., refineries outages in LA and pumping stations in MS without power. The major reason those assets were secured relatively quickly was due to the actions of the Coast Guard and private oil and gas operators in the Gulf area. As an aside, I must commend the Coast Guard for their performance. Their efforts to secure the Port of New Orleans, the offshore docking facilities, shipping lanes to the Gulf, and search and rescue operations was and is outstanding.

Although I have not been active on this Forum very long, I have been very critical, in other settings, of the way FEMA was set up many years ago in 1974. I have also been critical of the fashion in which the Homeland Security Department was set up intially.

The major events leading to the consolidation of federal emergency relief operations prior to the establishment of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), were the string of disasters that occurred in the 1960's and early 1970's that overwhelmed State governments.At the time the Stafford Act was passed in 1974, the major points of debate centered around what responsibilities the States would retain given the proposed structure and what cost sharing arrangements would be put in place to supplement State funds in the event of a disaster. What followed was a five year debate on just those questions resulting in the creation of FEMA in 1979. In 1979, at the request of the National Governors Association, President Carter, by executive order, consolidated many agencies responsible for disaster related activities. The FEMA regime continued from there on with some minor adjustments until after the turn of the century. Then an event occurred which finally changed at least the focus of disaster relief. We all know what that event was, 9-11. This milestone and the response that followed pointed to the major flaws in the FEMA system and other Federal functions associated with disaster response. The key words here are assets, security, command and control.

In the State of Louisiana there is one major department that reports to the Governor that is charged with providing relief and security in a disaster scenario. The head of that department is the Adjutant General of the State of Louisiana. In addition to his duties as Commander of the Louisiana National Guard, the AG also has the title of Director of the Louisiana Military Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Thus, the Governor has single level command and control over both security and disaster relief. We can debate at a later time whether this type of organization is better than others, or was effective in responding to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

In the State of Mississippi the Adjutant General and Executive Director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency are separate, cabinet level departments with both reporting directly to the Governor.

IMHO: The Federal Government is not a bottomless cookie jar, whereby each State can whine to the Feds., saying over and over again, gimmie, gimmie, gimmie. The Governors and officials in those States are responsible for the security of their citizens. The Federal Government can help whenever it can, but the Governors of the respective States must take responsibility for their own actions. If you can't stand the heat, try some other line of work like baking cookies.

[oceanview]

I don't know, as long as they are in the "normal" cruise setup - cabins, meals, etc - and they don't turn the cruise ship into a floating superdome, they should be OK. I would focus on just sending women and children to the cruise ships, the security situation will be much better that way.

[Howlin]

Did he actually read the "warning" letter?

[Letitring]

Yessssssss, we are mostly okay.

Our town has doubled in size but the police force remains the same. Supplies are in very short supply. Lines long, and it seems we have many new citizens.

Take a book when you go for gasoline.

Our temporary red cross shelters have become more, um, shall we say long term?

[rolling_stone]

Apparently the woman was in a rest home in St Bernard Parish. Her son should have evacuated her before the hurricane . If not he should have made his way there and rescued her. third how did she survive the week and then "drownded"? Was there some new higher flood waters?While I sympathize with anyone who lost a loved one, espcially a mother, the story seems suspect to me...Oh having phone contact was pretty lucky too...

[CedarDave]

“The military is there anyway on the principle: 'It's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.' Federal troops can't do law enforcement. So they are being creative. National Guard will embed in active military units and be there to make actual arrests. That's very similar to what has been done in past hurricanes and the Coast Guard has done the same thing with the Navy in the past.”

Just WOW. The whole post is required reading.

BTW, my CG unit was under Navy command during my year in Nam. Worked just fine.

[sissyjane]

Thanks. I remembered right after I hit send.

What a pansy he's turned out to be.

[Arizona Carolyn]

I think that is true. I chastised Joe Scarborough and received a first-ever email reprimanding me for injecting politics into this disaster.

[Letitring]

You have never lied! I've never seen anything like it! Groan, the stories I could tell!!!!!!!!!

[Soul Seeker]

OMH, now Nagin wants to ride the coattails of the Prez when he was selling him out just a couple days ago. This is going to get good. LOL