FEMA Chief Waited Until After Storm Hit

NewsMax ^ | September 7, 2005 | NewsMax Wires

[Lunatic Fringe]

Brown needs to be fired IMMEDIATELY. I can't belive Bush ever gave such responsibility to this imbecile.

[Perdogg]

Is it SOP to wait?

[roses of sharon]

Hysteria reins supreme.

[Perdogg]

I have been in three hurricanes, I have not heard of one instance where fema was there before the hurricane.

[nj26]

DNC Talking Points? NewsMax is on the job. This reminds me of their PR machine for Hillary '08.

[TheOtherOne]

"This is the largest disaster in the history of the United States, over an area twice the size of Europe," Stevens said. "People have to understand this is a big, big problem."

Ahh, I don't think the area is 2x as big as all of Europe, but rather just the UK. Oh well, why should a US Senator have a clue about geography before speaking.

[MizSterious]

Their toxic points are almost as bad as the spyware that always seems to appear after visiting their website.

[Irish Eyes]

FEMA Chief Waited Until After Storm Hit

This is bad???

[LdSentinal]

Indeed. Ted Stevens should know about geography considering he's from Alaska.

[TheOtherOne]

PS, TED, Europe is about 4,065,945 square miles. The disaster area is 90,000 sq miles. What a buffoon.

[Trust but Verify]

Your screen name seems appropriate given your post. This only sounds bad if you don't know that FEMA is not there as first responders. That responsibility goes to the local officials and departments.

[tomahawk]

Bush appointed him.

Bush put FEMA under Homeland Security.

But the bigger problem is that LA and NO officials did not follow the evacuation plan.

[Brilliant]

I think Brown is finished.

[Brilliant]

He's probably talking about more than just Louisiana.

[Trust but Verify]

Michael Brown has been FEMA director since 2003. That would, of course, make him a veteran of last year's hurricane outbreak in Florida. I have a hard time believing he did everything right last year, and everything wrong this year. I think it far more likely that the officials in Florida were far more prepared than the officials in LA, and therefore the combination of federal (FEMA) and local emergency government was seamless.

[John Lenin]

I knew it was a huge mistake to combine a bunch of agencies under one roof. Bigger is not better when it comes to getting things one.

[mercy]

Get a grip. FEMA is not a 'first responder'. The tragedy of the Super Dome and the Convention Center are the fault of local authorities. Not because they failed to evacuate them after the storm, that was a herculean task that had to take the time it die, but rather putting them in there in the first place.

If the levees had not broken this disaster would have been much less, in NO anyway. But once the levees went ... the refuge of the Dome and the Convention Center became death traps.

NO authorities should have realized this was possible but the pretended it was all a huge surprise. NO was one big death trap waiting to happen.

It's not Browns fault!

[Brilliant]

No one else can implement the New Orleans emergency plan except local officials. If they don't do it, the feds can't push them aside and take over. They don't know the plan, and haven't practiced doing what the local officials are supposed to do.

This is what happens when you elect incompetent state and local officials.

[cwb]

FEMA has made clear that their response efforts are 72-96 hours after a crisis occurs. They are not an armed response team nor do they have any law enforcement authority. In fact (unless things have changed) they don't even have the resources to move debris.

Having dealt with FEMA in Florida, they are a buearucracy that sets up offices, takes names and information on what people have lost and tries to expedite federal funds to victims. In some cases (like mine), they survey damage (such as roof-tile) and assist in getting temporary coverage and repairs set up.

I simply don't see how any of this could've occured at this time in New Orleans when the local government hadn't even taken care of their basics.