Laissez Les Têtes Rouler

Why do you leave out the mayor of New Orleans in this? It is clear that a more competent evaluation plan could have saved many lives, and my impression is that that was his responsiblity.

I also don’t understand why Blanco is more responsible than Nagin. Nagin did a fair amount of crying too. Of course, it’s pretty clear that Bush has done no crying at all, which in many ways is more disturbing.

Disclaimer: My mom carpooled with Blanco in the old days in Lafayette, before her rise to prominence.

The sad thing is that it seems as if all the Republican energy will focus on Blanco to the exclusion of any other meaningful reform. The lies that she didn’t request aid or declare the state a disaster area until after the Feds did so (documented otherwise) are circulating widely in the mainstream media. . . .

I thought that one of the things we learned from Andrew, 9/11, etc. was that local politicians are going to be overwhelmed by major disasters so we should set up and staff a Federal agency full of professionals to be ready to take over when needed.

I’m far less inclined to blame the pothole fixers for being who they are than to blame FEMA and DHS for not being who they are supposed to be.

Snoey,
I thought what we learned from 9/11 is that local and state government will always be the first responders and everyone should hope to have New York’s first responders and not NO’s. To attack FEMA and DHS is to attack Federalism. If you want them to be the All Powerful Rescue Organization then we need to drop the 10th Amendment.

Laissez, surely?

I know this is a very serious post that I agree with all six points (5-6 only to a degree), but I can’t help but see the humor that sites like AR15 have this exact same thread going, yet couldn’t be be further away on the political spectrum.

While on it, why not hang someone for ignoring that “Bin Laden is determined to strike within the United States” memo four years ago?

I’ve no vested interest in carrying water for Nagin (you’ll pardon the expression), but there is not a big-city mayor in the whole entire US of A who is ready for a disaster that puts 80 percent of his or her city under water. Not one of them.

Nobody is prepared for disaster on that scale, and no local government is even remotely equipped to cope with it. If the Big One levels 80 percent of SF or LA; if Rainier erupts and buries 80 percent of Seattle; if a suitcase nuke wipes out 80 percent of DC or NYC; if Andrew 2 put 80 percent of Miami out of action; if — the list goes on — if any of those predictable events happens, the local mayor will not be able to handle it. That’s not blame, that’s a fact.

The definition of disaster is that it overwhelms the people on the scene. That’s one of the reasons we have a national government. Pre-positioning materials outside the disaster area, taking mitigation steps in advance, spreading risk across a broader pool, coordinating resources on a large scale–these are all things that no local government can do, that no local government should be expected to be able to do, and things that the federal government conspicuously failed to do in this case.

And the fact that the Bush I people pursued a similar “blame the local leadership” strategy after hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992 increases the skepticism with which I view their current pronouncements.

Alkali, president may not be able to send federal troops to maintain order, but he certainly can send them to provide every other kind of assistance: to deliver food, supplies and medical care, to evacuate people, etc.

Two points:

1) Once Bush signed the decleration of emergency on Saturday PRIOR to Landfall, he didn’t need shit from Blanco. The Federal Government and FEMA took all the responsibility for action.

I have no idea how screwed up Blanco’s reaction was, because it’s being obscured by the massive federal mistakes and the finger-pointing from George “I’m not playing the Blame Game” Bush.

I’d imagine at least SOME of her mistake was in assuming FEMA — and regular Army units — would arrive to help out in a reasonable time. Or perhaps in assuming that the Arizona Guardsmen she requested would have their Washington paperwork processed before the THURSDAY AFTER LANDFALL.

2) Nagin’s planning: Seriously, guys, do you think this man can excrete shelters? Has a magical army? What the fuck was he supposed to do? He doesn’t have the manpower to FORCE an evacuation, and even if he rounded up the busses and the people left, where’s he going to take them? Which cities (you’ll need to name at least five) within an 8 to 12 hour drive would be willing to take 25,000 poor blacks BEFORE New Orleans was wiped out?

Hint: “None” is a pretty accurate answer.

While “Tell everyone to leave, and ensure that shelters capable of weathering the storm and flooding” isn’t a great plan, it’s about the best the Mayor of New Orleans is going to be able to do, unless the Mayor’s name is “Jesus”.

It’s worth noting that until late Wednesday, early Thursday, things hadn’t gone to shit. Tens of thousands of citizens had been sheltered from the storm and were dry, and S&R operations were proceeeding.

Dear Sir or Madam,

This morning, while listening to my radio, I heard an uncommented airing of “I’m Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves.

Is there someone I can sue or send to jail for this violation of good taste?

Alternately, what is the appropriate statute of limitations before this song may be played again without the implication of irony?

Jet,

Agreed that when it initally hits the fan the locals are in charge. I’m faulting the feds in two areas: coordinating the plans prior – the Hurricane Pam followups that never happened for example, and the rescue and recovery efforts. Hundreds if not thousands died after they had been initially rescued.

What is missing from all the Katrina discussions is any form of an accurate timeline on aid and activation of different local, state and federal agencies. It would be helpful to know exactly how long it took FEMA to get involved from when it was “officially” asked, when exactly where active duty troops sent in, when exactly was the “official” evacuation order given, and when exactly did officials know that the levy system had failed?

Another topic that is missing is the nature of the city. New Orleans had weathered a large number of hurricanes in the recent past. Like earthquakes for California, many residents had grown used to the risks. A portion of residents stayed to confront the more likely danger of looting (also a common occurrence in past hurricanes) compared with the more unlikely destruction of the city. City officials have always been unable to provide police protection to citizens living in the poorer areas. The hurricane only brought this to national attention. It did not change the reality of the situation. It is unclear how Nagin could have corrected these things days before Katrina.

The biggest result of the President declaring a State of Emergency is Federal funding. The State in question can expect the Federal Government to pay for the call up of local National Guard units. This does not mean the Feds are automatically in charge of the situation. The Feds can not send in active duty military to a state without 1) the State Governers ok or 2) declaring an insurection or 3) the military being wholly limited to resuce opperations (no law order stuff). On the other side, a forward thinking leader would have had FEMA and active duty personel ready and waiting at the state line for the “official” request for aid. One other item. FEMA as a 48 to 72 hour delay from the go order to when FEMA help begins to arrive. This should really be 24 hours or less but its not.

belle writes:

sure, alkali, but I have to say that if I were gov of LA I might, just possibly, try to work out in advance sometime what we would do if the Big One hit.

Oh, no doubt. As far as I’m concerned, Blanco should not serve in public office any more even if she didn’t do anything wrong (cf. Oedipus; I like to think of this as the “one-plague-and-you’re-out” rule). I’m just saying that this particular bit of White House excuse-making doesn’t seem to pass the smell test; Blanco couldn’t have anticipated that some White House law nerd would turn a hurricane into a federal courts exam question.

The AR15 link doesn’t work. Or maybe shame overcame them and they’ve deleted it.

that there were multiple witnesses to people being turned back from the highway by the Gretna police

Wasn’t the moustache guy from fow news witnessing this too?

Something is very wrong with a country that allows a colossal failure, i.e. Bush, to complete his term. May be a million people on the wall in Washington will be enough to force him out. Just because there is no legal leverage to topple this regime should not stop us from trying.

Belle,

Uhh…
According to General Honoré, the governors both of Louisiana and Missisippi requested active armed forces disaster help (except law enforcement duties if I understand it correctly) before the hurricane.

http://tinyurl.com/8fu98
The process starts, sir, in this particular event, with a request Friday of last week, as the approximate date for defense coordinating offices to be established in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Those were established in those states over Friday and Saturday.
…
Sir, that started to happen on Saturday, as the hurricane was approaching, and was executed with the movement of my headquarters on Sunday to Mississippi, where we established a joint — JTF headquarters here in Mississippi with a forward cell of the 5th United States Army in Louisiana. And on Sunday we established JTF-Katrina, with myself as the task force commander.

I´m not an American so I can´t comment on all the legalities. But if I were a state governor I would assume that a “forward cell of the 5th United States Army” would have some ideas on their own, you know.
Is the American system really that rigid? If you don´t ask especially for one thing, no active duty officer will even mention the possibility?

Not to mention that apparently at least some help offers were buried in Washington bureaucracy fights.

http://tinyurl.com/deota
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state’s National Guard last Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn’t come from Washington until late Thursday.

Mind you, I´m not saying that Blanco is blameless but after that “senior administration official” quote in the Washington Post (with the false claim that she didn´t declare a state of emergency), I´ve started to become more suspicious of any unsourced claims.

While I generally like this article and god knows there is enough blame to go around, aren’t the CT people supposed to sociologists, more or less? It seems to me that if there is systemic failure up and down all levels of government, then, satisfying as it is to find individuals to blame, the real problem is with the bureaucratic structures that are supposed to be responsible for managing emergency situations. Something is deeply wrong and tumbling a few heads is unlikely to fix it.

I don’t get the meme about the troops. Troops have been sent into U.S. cities in the case of Hurricane Andrew and in the case of many riots — Detroit and L.A., to name some off the top of my head. And in fact from what we’ve been reading, the troops in NOLA have no trouble shooting — without the benefit of an insurrection act.

If, as we are reading, there are some 40 000 troops in the area now, there could have been 40 000 troops in the area last week — or at least a couple thousand to patrol the streets of New Orleans. The excuses seem brain dead, since, logically, the position of the excusers should be that the troops in the Gulf region should be pulled out until Bush declares some wacko provision to legalize them. However, that doesn’t seem to have happened, and the troops were sent anyway. As seems always to be the case with the Bush administration, the facts on the ground contradict the arguments emanating from the White House.

Let’s not forget the Senate that spent approximately 42 minutes providing their “advice and consent” when Bush nominated Brownie. Remember Brown next time someone tries to claim that the Senate should defer to the President and give him the people he wants.

If I look at the pre-hurricane situation namely “mandatory evacuation”, I have come to the conclusion that nobody, be it local, state or federal authorities were interested in spending the time and money to develop a realistic (=workable) plan for such an evacuation.

http://tinyurl.com/84xn3
Just last year, FEMA hired a private company, IEM Inc. of Baton Rouge, to help conduct an eight-day drill for a fictional Category 5 hurricane in New Orleans named Pam. It included staging a helicopter evacuation of the Superdome, a prediction of 15 feet of water in parts of the city and the evacuation of 1-million people.

But the second part of the company’s work – to design a plan to fix unresolved problems, such as evacuating sick and injured people and housing thousands of stranded residents – never occurred because the funding was cut.

I´ve read a lot about the flooded buses in New Orleans. Nobody mentions that if you want a successful evacuation of the whole city you´ll need:

– Lot´s of people (police, National Guard) to assist in and enforce a mandatory evacuation.

– Lot´s of transportation including airplanes, trains and buses if you want an evacuation inside 48-72 hours.

– Prepared shelters for the evacuated people including food, water and medical supplies.

– Lots of ambulances and medivac helos for sick and disabled people plus destinations for them.

– Lot´s of law enforcement and firefighters staying inside the city to convince people that their property will be safe from criminals.

– And maybe assuring evacuating people that they don´t have to pay for it.
http://tinyurl.com/7934f
I am stunned by an interview I conducted with New Orleans Detective Lawrence Dupree. He told me they were trying to rescue people with a helicopter and the people were so poor they were afraid it would cost too much to get a ride and they had no money for a “ticket.” Dupree was shaken telling us the story. He just couldn’t believe these people were afraid they’d be charged for a rescue.

Everybody crossed their fingers and hoped that it wouldn´t happen during their time. Maybe I´m too harsh but that´s the way it looks from this side of the Atlantic ocean. And I readily admit that a 100% evacuation is unrealistic anyway.

The person with the least blame for that is probably the mayor of New Orleans IMO.
He simply didn´t have the manpower and the transport for it.
(Oh and suppose the people without personal transport had really turned out to be evacuated, all of them. The city buses at best could have transported 20,000 to 30,000 people. Best case scenario. How do you think the rest of them would have reacted? Riots probably.)

The state governor probably is more to blame. She had access to more transportation and manpower resources than the mayor. Not to mention that she could have ordered at least some shelter building.
Still I don´t think that even her resources would have been enough.

If you look at the resources needed for a successful evacuation, it´s totally impossible without major federal help. I don´t think a state governor can request/order airlines/Amtrak/Greyhound help and resources for an evacuation on her own? Not to mention the traffic disturbances such a major effort would cause?

A real evacuation plan would have required a pre-planned federal assistance and coordination from the beginning.

Alkali,

My source is this NYT article (thanks to Andrew Sullivan–it’s quoted in his post, “The Breakdown”).

The key line is somewhat buried–you have to know the “two command structures” issue to get it.

Officials in Louisiana agree that the governor would not have given up control over National Guard troops in her state as would have been required to send large numbers of active-duty soldiers into the area.

SamChevre

Sam,

Could you clarify that?

The LA National Guard is under the Governor’s command; active-duty military (and Guardsmen from other states) are under federal command. They cannot work in the same area and both be armed.

I don´t understand that statement. Local and state police are armed too, right?
And the New Mexico governor offered National Guard units to help in Louisiana before the hurricane made landfall. If such a scenario existed then why is it now impossible?

If I read General Honoré right, the National Guard regardless of which state they come from, can be used for law enforcement in New Orleans? It´s only active duty soldiers that can´t be used in law-enforcement?

But there is a major effort in Louisiana for security-type forces. And I will tell you that the majority of them right now — Louisiana has 4,700 of its own National Guard committed to that effort. And the majority of the force flow — there will be 1,400 additional security forces in Louisiana today, with an additional 1,400 tomorrow are on that force flow buildup, as I gave it to you. But we will get that to you in detail within a few minutes, sir.

It’s fair to say the majority of the forces going to Louisiana are security-type forces, sir.

I see responsibility for this catastrophe as falling into two groups: those who failed to prepare, and those who failed to act. Not a perfect division of responsibility, but a useful one. Think about it in terms of the different aspects of governing: legislative power is presumably about shaping and protecting society through the construction of laws, whereas executive power is about the enforcement and management (including crisis management) of those laws. If various executives (the mayor, the governor, and the president) can be faulted for their disregard for the short-terms means of protecting life and property available to them, then various legislatures can be equally faulted for not having made use of the power and monies available to them to think in the long term. President Bush is ultimately accountable for federal government’s poor response to the disaster, but I wouldn’t say he is accountable for the unprepared environment which suffered the disaster–that blame goes to state legislatures and especially Congress, and specifically Louisiana legislators who consistently pushed the Army Corps of Engineers to work on short-term, rather than long-term, concerns. Former Democratic senator John Breaux’s commented in the Washington Post, when confronted with the fact that the actual requisitions his state had made of the ACE rarely pertained to the maintenance of the levees: “We thought all [these] projects were important; not just levees….Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but navigation projects were critical to our economic survival.” This is rather damning, considering the fact that the navigation projects he pushed were practically worthless make-work projects.

Really? Hmmm. What about the hundreds of thousands of individuals who lived and worked in New Orleans for decades under the imminent threat of Katrina-style disaster, yet did nothing to take care of their OWN houses, or their OWN families?

Responsibility begins at home, and preparedness trumps response every time. More here.

The buses could have made several trips to the capital and back in 24 hours

Yes, of course you could have made several round-trips in 24 hours when ONE-WAY evacuation to Baton Rouge was reported to haven take as long as 18 hours, if I remember correctly.

And where was all the fuel to do that going to come from, if I may ask. From what I know of local schools districts, they keep on hand enough fuel for a couple of weeks of normal operation, tops. (I know some folks in South Carolina whose school district may have to shut down shortly because of Katrina-induced fuel shortages; they have almost run through their reserves already.) Sending the entire fleet to Baton Rouge even once in stop-and-go traffic could very well have depleted the whole stockpile. It is logistical issues like these that led us to set up a federal disaster agency in the first place.

Officials in Louisiana agree that the governor would not have given up control over National Guard troops in her state as would have been required to send large numbers of active-duty soldiers into the area.

1) What officials? How do they know?

2) “Would not have?” So I take it no one ever asked?

Someone should notice China Mieville’s point. Really.

Thanks PNH. Detlef, apologies for causing outrage. However, we aren’t in fact in complete agreement. We agree that no one was interested in spending time, money or effort on the evacuation of the poor. But i) you think that Nagin bears the least blame for this, and ii) that what happened was because they did not ‘plan for the long term’. By contrast (and this really is the last time I will labour this point), I (see the links) accept the mass of public evidence that there was a plan, a plan that Nagin was intimately involved in formulating, well in advance, to completely ignore the poor. You may be right that they ‘hoped a disaster wouldn’t happen’, but that is not the same as not having planned, and planned carefully. It is for having carefully planned in the way he did that I think Nagin can and should be blamed, hard (along with many other people). I don’t blame them for not having a long-term plan, but for having the plan they had. If we keep going on about ‘lack of planning’, ‘incompetence’, etc, we may think we’re attacking them but in fact we’re letting them off the hook, because inadequate planning would be a vastly lesser crime than what they did, which is exactly what they long promised to do.

Sam,

I do admit that I don´t understand the legal options for a state vs. the federal government in the USA.

Heh, I´m a German and active duty military assistance in case of a natural disaster is a given. Not law-enforcement duty, you understand, but search and rescue and transporting supplies. Not to mention boots on the ground to repair a levee breach.

Just reread myself. It’s disgusting. But yes, i’m that pessimistic about it.

Sounds like the Gretna story might’ve been the worst episode there. That the Bushies and various LA politicians fucked up is not a big surprise, but what those Gretna cops did is something else completely; that was clearly a violation of civil rights. Those guys definitely need to go to jail.

China wrote:

We agree that no one was interested in spending time, money or effort on the evacuation of the poor. But i) you think that Nagin bears the least blame for this, and ii) that what happened was because they did not ‘plan for the long term’. By contrast (and this really is the last time I will labour this point), I (see the links) accept the mass of public evidence that there was a plan, a plan that Nagin was intimately involved in formulating, well in advance, to completely ignore the poor. You may be right that they ‘hoped a disaster wouldn’t happen’, but that is not the same as not having planned, and planned carefully. It is for having carefully planned in the way he did that I think Nagin can and should be blamed, hard (along with many other people).

China, I apologize too!

I don´t know if there was a “real plan”. See the link above in comments saying that planning for the “hard stuff” was cut in 2004.

The only difference between us seems to be the planning inside New Orleans. We do agree that nobody (local, state and federal) was interested in a plan to evacuate the poor people.
We only disagree on whom to blame!

Let me make it clear! I´m a German and I do blame the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana too!

I´m simply saying that the mayor of New Orleans today and in the past never had access to the resources needed for a “real” evacuation of New Orleans. And don´t tell me that he could over-rule state and federal authorities!

I´m an engineer, so bear with me. :)
You do the best with the resources you have. And you try to project confidence in your (only) realistic choice.

He knew that state and federal authorities wouldn´t help him with a “real” mandatory evacuation. So he tried his best evacuating people, and caring for remaining people.
And I do agree that he failed the remaining people! (Water and food in the Superdome would have helped there.)

For the rest of it, it´s kind of like “you invade with the army you have, not the army and equipment you wish you have”. Or “stuff happens” and “freedom is messy”.

It is perfectly clear to me that a simple mayor can´t command the resources needed for a mandatory evacuation.

Heh, if I could do it, I´d fire
– the mayor of New Orleans
– the governor of Louisisana and maybe Mississippi
– the topmost ten guys of FEMA and DHS
– President Bush and Vice President Cheney
– a few other people from the Senate and house of represetatives

But you´re a republic, so it´s up to you to determine their performance…

China,

You know what freaks me out?
That the LA governor would decide:

http://tinyurl.com/8ztvg
I have declared August 31, 2005, a Day of Prayer in the State of Louisiana.

I am asking that all of Louisiana take some time Wednesday to pray. Pray for the victims and the rescuers. Please pray that God give us all the physical and spiritual strength to work through this crisis and rebuild.

I´m a secular “Old European wimp” :).
And that whole “day of prayer” freaks me out. Especially since back then, countless (heathen) countries like Canada and countries in Western Europe for example had already offered help.

Looks like a day of prayer is more important to the USA than fast response disaster teams from less “religious” Western countries?

detlef, America has been having days of prayer for over 200 years. Let’s not talk about what Germany has done during the past 200 years.

I must say, this induces a few pangs of sympathy for Condi – http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00103/cartoon050905_103329a.jpg

But not many.

ABB1 > but what those Gretna cops did is something else completely; that was clearly a violation of civil rights.

Wasn’t that just a beastly thing to do? Civil liberties, Jennings my dear boy? It’s political correctness gone mad!!!

PETER H > but I have to admit it does not reflect well on socety’s priorities that wild animals received better care than people

It puts me in mind of Alan Clarke’s creepy remark, in response to John Pilger’s question as to if his concern for the welfare of animals extended to humans being blown up by the weapons he sold; “Curiously not”.

Ron Nagin has stated in an interview:”Get people to higher ground and have the feds and the state airlift supplies to them — that was the plan, man.”

–Quoted pejoratively here.

Of course, he was referring to people who couldn’t evacuate themselves. In aid of this he caused the city buses to bring people to the Superdome all day before the hurricane. A contract had already been let to harden the Superdome further against flooding, but Katrina came too soon for that to help. China is right that the DVDs urging churches and other civic groups to form plans for those with space in their cars to evacuate people without had been distributed. This isn’t a bad thing alone. It would improve the situation by leaving fewer people to shelter in place.

The evacuation of the disabled was negligent before the storm, and the provision of aid after the hurricane passed was negligent. There was a dry path into the city, and it should have been immediately used to evacuate those sheltering in place.

Another important angle to this story. Dr. William Cook writes:

It is estimated that the 1,500 Israeli settler families in Gaza would receive between $200,000 and $750,000 each to move into Israel. The compensation would be for their homes and businesses, but also include additional funds for new housing allowances, business and household relocation, or other expenses.” The total cost of the disengagement is estimated “at about 8 billion schekels ($1.74 billion).” (Truth seeker,” 7/8/05). These pullout costs are “included in the new U.S. aid package” according to the Jerusalem Post (_7/05).

Detlef . . . we had to do a day of prayer because we no longer have any witch doctors around to do rain dances.

I´m a secular “Old European wimp” :).
And that whole “day of prayer” freaks me out.

Detlef, I’m an agnostic American wimp, and it freaks me out too. And you may have heard that our President has declared a national “day of prayer” for 9/16, as well.

(OTOH, after the past couple of weeks, I’m ready to start beseeching the Entity of Indeterminate Nature to save our sorry asses before GWB kills us all. But that’s another story.)

As for the broader point, and specifically China’s observation: the idea that ignoring the poor was the plan (rather than a failure of the plan) doesn’t sound the least bit exaggerated when we consider statements like these:

So many of the people here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them. [Barbara Bush]

and

We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did. [Overheard comment by Louisiana Republican congressman Richard Baker]

Think of it this way: A substantial portion of the American public has already convinced itself that the people of Iraq–the ones that haven’t already died as a direct result of our actions, that is–are infinitely, unquestionably better off with an infrastructure in tatters and a society on the brink of civil war than they were under the previous regime. It’s not surprising that many of the same people can convince themselves that just about anything other than the status quo would be better for the poor, up to and including death. Why not let the Man Upstairs, in his infinite wisdom, engage in a little planetary housecleaning?

spenser: “So, what am I missing that makes the decision to keep the red cross out so bad?”

You’re not missing anything.
Negligence requires proof of actual damage.

Thanks for indirectly buttressing my point, eudoxis. I give you points for consistency, at least: You’ve been hammering that “No Biggie” theme in just about every comment you’ve made here.

Given that the government was doing everything in its power to keep the press out of NO and away from the recovery efforts (an effort they just abandoned , apparently), I’m inclined to treat official sources with a certain healthy skepticism.

And as the “surprisingly low” death toll is reported by authorities shielded from the eyes of the press, just clutch your head firmly with both hands and tell yourself you’ve managed to live with the Ohio election results and you’ll live with this too.

Why is everything about numbers around Bush always so damned “surpising”?

y81 wrote:

detlef, America has been having days of prayer for over 200 years. Let’s not talk about what Germany has done during the past 200 years.

Nice try!
Except that I didn´t wrote about the past 200 or even 60 years. (Not to mention that in the first 100 of these 200 years we didn´t do very much.)

If you want to have a day of prayer, fine!

But if I had been a foreign (European) tourist trapped in one of the New Orleans hotels, I certainly would have hoped that your authorities were able to “multi-task”. You know, praying and allowing every available help to come and help rescue and/or supply people.

Personally I wouldn´t have been comforted by a day of prayer while hearing at the same time that specialized foreign search and rescue teams were left waiting just outside the US border.

The governor calls in the national guard (generally that of his/her own state) and the guard is under the governor’s control. This has been done in past hurricanes. I think the Insurrection Act only comes into play if the National Guard is to be used for law enforcement purposes against the governor’s wishes and invoking martial law, not for aid and assistance. Bush tried to nationalize the Guard and Blanco asked for 24 hours to consider it. (according to an interview given by Nagin) I think she already realized that the feds were poised to blame the locals and she may have thought that resisting nationalizing the guard would help her keep some element of control–that is, help resist making herself a scapegoat. This didn’t happen until Bush came to LA.

You may recall that in 1968, Ohio governor James Rhodes called in the National Guard to fend off student protesters and it was at Kent State that the Guard shot and killed 4 students. The President was not involved (with respect to nationalizing the guard). All this crap is cya to divert our attention from how the Bushevics eviscerated FEMA. Brownie didn’t have a clue how to manage. The Bushevics don’t believe in executing governmental functions. They don’t believe in oversight. Already, they’re seeing this as an opportunity to promote their pet policy options, like school vouchers. Bush has already suspended the Davis=Bacon Act to allow firms to pay sub-standard wages, also on the Republican wish list of regulatory changes. No doubt Brownie will soon show up as a contractor (after all his old buddy Joe Allspaugh, former FEMA director who installed him, is already working his angle in LA). We should all be out there on PA ave protesting.

We’re about to witness a sham investigation (just as occurred in FDR’s administration over the similar fuckup that resulted in the loss of WWII veterans in the Florida Keys in 1935). Hope Pelosi and Reid stand firm in not agreeing to participate.

You may recall that in 1968, Ohio governor James Rhodes called in the National Guard to fend off student protesters and it was at Kent State that the Guard shot and killed 4 students.

1970?

I don’t know enough about Blanco for a final judgment, but the Fed’s defense that she did ask enough or at the right time has a certain air of “Simon Says” about it. “Run for the hills, the dam is busted!” “Oops, forgot to say may I!”

The Bush investigation puts me in mind of OJ looking for the real killer.

Most people commenting on the New Orleans flood rescue have obviously never been in a fair dinkum flood. I have been in a fair flood in a big Mack truck; you get more respect for Mother Nature.
Fortunately, a member of the U.S. Senate has experience of trying to drive a vehicle through deep water and trying to rescue another person trapped in that vehicle. No doubt the Senator will share his experience with his peers in the forthcoming investigations.