Newsweek has a pretty exhaustive recap of what went wrong with the Katrina response. Some 19 correspondents pieced together the timeline and various events that affected the delayed response. Don't let the title fool you, there is plenty of blame to go around, although ultimately I think everyone (even some Republicans in this space) agree where the "buck stops". This is a must read.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434/
Some interesting things:
-The president boasting how he doesn't read or watch the news. I mean, the only other person who is proud of such things is Michael Derr, and I certainly don't want him running the country anytime soon. Warrants mentioning.
-The total lack of any plan in the state of LA. I can picture the officials sitting around saying "First I'll soil myself - then I'll come up with a plan."
-"Brownie, you're doing a heckova job". Nuff Ced
3 comments:
I often thought how LA would react if the big one finally does hit, and I can't ever imagine the same things occurring like they did down in New Orleans. Even if LA fell off into the Pacific, I think there would be more order than what we saw down in NO.
Sammy, while I agree with most everything you said, I do find it hard to believe that the insurance industry as a whole can mobilize thousands of claim reps to the area, book hotels for their insureds in advance, and have checks ready in hand, while we can't get our government to deliver water in 4-5 days. Actually this isn't surprising to me and I'm getting more and more pissed off everday when people say that their government can't respond quickly. This is the same local, state and federal government that is so overrun with corruption and underacheiving assholes that I'm surprised that they even got anything put together at all. I mean seriously, have you ever interviewed a state or federal worker for a job in the private sector? Have you ever been to lunch with one of these guys or girls? I have yet to see anyone compentent enough to hire as my secretary.
I want to comment on Jay's post in greater detail, but first I'll focus on one of Sammy's lines...
Sammy: So let me get this straight, the news media can stand there with a camera on a dying baby and not offer assistance? They can film crimes being committed and not do anything? Every one of those tapes should be seized as "evidence" and those offenders rounded up and jailed.
This, to me, is a HUGE outrage...but who's going to report this? The reports that denied the refugees help?
"Hello, I'm Katie Couric..let's talk to Beth here, who's been at the Superdome for 3 days without food, water or restroom facilities. Beth, how are you coping?"
Beth: "Do you have any water?"
Katie: " That's the state down here, Matt. People are looking for water, and it's a shame that Bush isn't here to deliver it."
Beth: "Please, my 10-month-old baby is going to die"
Katie: "Talking about babies, do you have any pets? We hear a lot of pets got stranded. do you consider it shocking that your pets weren't rescued?"
Beth: "Do you have any food? Please? Can you bring us a port-a-john, at least?"
Katie:"Matt, it's so sad down here. No food, no water, no pets, no hygiene. And when I come in every day, hunderes of people are dying of thrist along the roads".
I'm exaggerating, of course. But what are these jouranlists thinking? For God's sake, share some of your water with them!
Good post, Laura.
Some comments....
1) It's not your job to give money to the Tsunami relief fund or the Katrina relief fund, but you do it anyway, out of generosity.
2)I didn't catch Scarborough, so I missed that.
3) Is it HS's job to oversee all plans that the local governments derive? Really? That's 50 plans(1 for each state), and the biggest 200 cities should probably have one. So their job is to oversee and double-check all those plans?
I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I just want to make sure this is right. If so, then a) they did botch and b) no more complaining about too much money going to homeland security. This seems like an enormous task.
4) That being said, it shouldn't take that much intelligence to follow this chain of events if you are in HS...
a) what city is fragile in terms of geography? (NO certainly has to be up there)
b) can terrorists expose that fragility in some way, thru explosion? (Can terrorists cause an earthquake in CA? No. Can terrorist explode the levies so that they break? I'm sure it could be done....)
It does seem that a possible explosion on a NO levy would be a realistic scenario to plan for. So then - what is HS doing?
5) It is very, very, very disturbing to know that FEMA's director did not know there were evacuues at the convention center until CNN told him. That's inexcuasble.
However, the media was late to this story anyway. On that Tuesday, I made a post that linked to brendanloy.com, saying that things are worse than the media was reporting. What was the story all day Monday and Tuesday? "NO spared brunt of storm!"
So these comments about Bush needing to watch the news would not have helped in this case. The media was caught unaware until Tue afternoon, at the earliest.
6) Most experts warned that it would take 48 hours to evacuate the city, yet the mayor only gave them 24 hours.
7) Re Poverty: Yes, it is hard to put myself in their shoes. It is completely foreign to me not to have a car. I'm sorry - I hope that does not sound insensitive. It is a completely different lifestyle/culture that I am not familiar with. Sorry.
I understand your point - what are they going to do when the warning came down? Therefore, it is governement's responsibility to protect them. The question is, what level? All three, or just the feds?
8) Just an aside, I have an issue with your sentence:
"Most of these people work several jobs and live paycheck to paycheck."
One of those words, I believe, is wrong. To me, either "most" or "several" should not be there.
9)As I said, I think it should be government's role to take care of those people during a disaster such as this. There were numeroous failures during this whole instance.
I just have an issue with everyone heaping all the blame on Bush/FEMA.
Case in point: Many people are asking the question of why the response in Mississippi was much better than Louisiana. This is the charge of racism that is hurled against the administration.
Well, there is one other difference that's not talked about. The governor of MS is a Republican, and the governor of LA is a Democrat.
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