Innovative Emergency Management

Told you. It’s the corruption, stupid.

Thought it would be worth noting that IEM seems to have some at least nominal links to James Lee Witt Associates. If this was pure and simple cronyism, those would not be there.

It’s almost as if someone was trying to evade responsibility for incompetence that’s resulted in the deaths of thousands, or something.

Well, it’s musical chairs at this point. Who’s more responsible: IEM, or President/Commander-in-Chief Bush?

This isn’t privatization. This is public money being diverted to a private company for the purpose of evading accountability, plain and simple.

Now of course people are going to use this as an “example” of how government does a better job than private industry. *sigh*

Given that the mere threat of armed gangs drove off much of the relief effort. Given that buses couldn’t run because fuel trucks refused to drive into the danger zones. Given that firemen and police are having to be airlifted to safety by Marine choppers because of sniper fire. I’d say the problem comes down to who ignored the looters? That one of the reasons so many police have quit is that they aren’t going to rick their lives after they lost everything else. Once civil order started to break down we only have to look at our neighbors in the Caribbean to have known what would happen. Now we have our own example of what happens when the looters are let run free because they are poor.

You can’t refute that if it weren’t for the complete lack of civil order the relief effort would have gone a hell of a lot smoother.

Nick,
I’ve got about 36 hours of insane radio traffic as mp3’s, and it is crazy stuff. Enough to convince me that there was enough man made chaos that it had a significant impact on the rescue effort. You can say it is too early to tell if I’m right, but you’re smoking crack if you don’t think there is a good chance I’m right.

Dont worry,when you are on one side of the barricades and they are on the other,you will find the words.

John, When you can explain how holding ~50 fireman hostage under sniper fire who in the process of being rescued a sheriff was murdered, when you can explain how that didn’t effect the rescue process, then maybe you’ll have a case. And that was just one of many. I’m not saying the rescue didn’t have huge screw ups. But you’re going to feel like a real asshole when you realize just how much of a war zone it was.

You might want to look in a mirror when thinking about “spin mode”. You’re going out of your way to downplay the attacks and murders of police, soldiers and rescue workers (and the theft and destruction of their equipment).

jet, what people are hinting at is that the failed rescue efforts preceded the civil disorder. There wasn’t a smoothly-operating rescue setup going on right up until the moment that some fools with guns ruined it.

It’s pretty rich to see a guy who adopts “Lenin” as an online sobriquet going moralistic about who’s responsible for a massive human calamity (and I liked Perdido Street Station!). It’s also pretty laughable to imply, as he does, that IEM’s dereliction and cheap CYA here is somehow a falsification of the idea that the private sector is more efficient & accountable than the government (somehow I suspect IEM’s bottom line will be more affected by this than the budgets of any government agencies are).

That said, I found what he showed pretty shocking, and IEM’s attempt to rewrite their history there suggests that, indeed, rather than their having come up with a good plan that was ignored, they probably wasted a half million dollars’ worth of taxpayer money and are now hoping no one notices.

It’s pretty rich to see a guy who adopts “Lenin” as an online sobriquet going moralistic about who’s responsible for a massive human calamity (and I liked Perdido Street Station!).

Factual note: China Mieville isn’t the blogger known as “Lenin”. Lenin’s Tomb is now a multi-author blog.

This shows that FEMA believes things went awry on Day 1 because of the “lawlessness”.

FEMA didn’t know about the existence of the 15,000-20,000 people at the Convention Center until Day 3. They’re about as credible as my neighborhood storefront psychic.

John Emerson,
Thank you for those kind remarks. But I fear you may have a bad case of “reading disability”. On many of the comments I’ve put on CT this week, I’ve said that it was chaos, that cops couldn’t talk to the military, and that it appeared to be a clusterfuck. I’ve never said that the rescue effort is without blame. But anyone saying that a huge part of the problem wasn’t the armed gangs, they are smoking crack. When 80% (at one point 100%) of the diminished police force is used to combat (or just contain in the Mayor’s words) the roaming gangs. When the police can’t do their job because they are besieged in “Fort Apache”, their precint building. And when the national guardsmen can’t do anything until the ammo truck arrives because no in their right mind would have prepared for New Orleans to turn into Baghdad (and would have been fired as the worst kind of racists if they had), then you know a poor plan was turned into a catastrophic failure by unforseen violence.

Here’s a couple of windows media clips from CNN to help shine some light on my “…sly people such as yourself encourage thew stupid people in that belief.”

Here’s the Mayor talking about the attacks on hospitals.

Here’s a reporter talking about Fort Apache and attacks on cops.

Reporters and camaramen on the ground are able to function depite sporadic violence, and one would hope that the authorities could too.

And now you’re just making shit up that you don’t have a clue about. I’d call you un-educated, but I know better. You’re just in full attack mode and any evidence that doesn’t fit your agenda is wrote off as spin. Jackass.

Way to go, man. Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live!. Give ’em hell, kid.

Let me get this straight: FEMA contracted with IEM and James Lee Witt’s outfit, and that’s supposed to be a bad thing. That’s a bit hard for me to swallow, after a week of hearing how James Lee Witt’s the bee’s knees when it comes to this kind of thing. I suppose that story is no longer operational, and we’ve determined that if it’s necessary to destroy James Lee Witt to destroy this administration, well, that’s a price we’re going to have to pay.

Henry, I have a suggestion: Catch your breath. Don’t casually repeat calumnies like this, especially when you haven’t a clue whether there’s any truth to them. Before you start accusing people of incompetence and such, have a basis for it. That’s simple human decency, something not seen much these days at CT. You’re usually much better than this.

abb1, I take it you’re chewing through the evil Mr. Witt? He’s good and bloody, I hope.

My outrage at the obvious delight some people I’d respected take in making outrageous and unbelievable statements is real, by the way. Demagogue is too kind a description for these.

Sorry to wear you out with a bit of honesty in a place of feigned-but-appropriate indignation. Cocktail party chatter for the university set is what we come here for, and there I am, going on and on about, well, who really cares? Doesn’t he know that’s not done? Spout off out those incompetents out there, and their mendacity and greed, and the resulting deaths–fine. Call someone on their b.s.–totally inappropriate. Really. Not done.

In other words, I made a mistake about the nature of the game. I’d thought–wrongly, as it turns out–that the truth of the matter mattered. It doesn’t–this is about status, pissing on those guys, and it doesn’t take truth to assert status.

Thomas: I don’t think I really understand your complaint. If, as seems the case, IEM has had an important role in the planning failures leading up to this mess, the certainly should be held publically accountable, so it is curious that they may have (so quickly) tried to distance themselves, isn’t it?

david:
It looks like there is enough blame to go around. I agree the focus on Bush & Co is counter-productive. Clearly the local authorities screwed up pre- and post-landfall. Clearly state and federal dropped the ball afterward … once it was clear the city was one big snafu. Culpability for various aspects of this fiasco goes from NO civil to washington, and all points inbetween.

The members of the New Orleans police force were just as impacted by the disaster as their fellow citizens. Many evacuated, some disappeared,at least 2 committed suicide, wile others basically shed thier uniforms and their responsibilities. The force simply was not prepared for this situation. In military terms, “command and control” were nonexistant … the situation became every man/woman/child for themselves regardless of the individuals official role in this drama.