FNC's Major Garrett: Red Cross Blocked by Order of the Louisiana State Government

Hugh Hewitt ^ | 9/7/05 | Hugh Hewitt

[finnman69]

The Red Cross Blocked

The Fox News Channel's Major Garrett was just on my show extending the story he had just reported on Brit Hume's show: The Red Cross is confirming to Garrett that it had prepositioned water, food, blankets and hygiene products for delivery to the Superdome and the Convention Center in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, but were blocked from delivering those supplies by orders of the Louisiana state government, which did not want to attract people to the Superdome and/or Convention Center. Garrett has no paper trail yet, but will follow up on his verbal confirmation from sources at the highest levels of the Red Cross.

The transcript of the interview will be available at Radioblogger later this afternoon.

And here is a very interesting article from Septmber of 2004:

Debate continues over Superdome as potential hurricane shelter

Seems that the debate over using the Superdome goes back almost a year, and that no one in New Orleans thought it would be a great place in a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane.

Key graphs:

"If we were to lose power, if we were to lose plumbing facilities, if a storm were to hit and create flooding in the area; the Superdome would not be a desirable place to be," he said.

The American Red Cross admits it would not stay in town for a severe hurricane. Workers would offer supplies and training to the Dome but would then leave to ensure aid for the hurricane's aftermath.

Kay Wilkins, spokesperson for the American Red Cross, said, "While we're saying we;re going to move our volunteers and staff out of the risk area into areas where its safer for them to be it doesn't mean we're not going to be here ahead of time for others."

Mayor Nagin said the city has more than 80,000 people without transportation access, and when the next hurricane evacuation there will be thousands of people who will not, or cannot, leave, highlighting the city's urgency of finding the most suitable place for shelter.

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[WuzaDem]

Re who is in charge of the LA Dept of Homeland Security, see this link:

http://wuzzadem.typepad.com/wuz/2005/09/another_katrina_1.html

It shows that the LA DHS (NOT the feds), who report to LA military, who in turn report to Blanco, were the agency that kept the RC out. Also a statement from a RC spokesperson saying that they *never* mentioned FEMA - the MSM made that part up.