Hurricane Katrina

[Balta1701]

should be entertaining...This one

 

The House Committee on Government Reform has obtained from the Department of Homeland Security a document describing the "Scope of Work" of a contract issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the development of a "Southeastern Louisiana Catastrophic Hurricane Plan."  We are writing to request any plans and other documents that were developed under this contract.

 

FEMA's Scope of Work contemplated that a private contractor, Innovative Emergency Management, Inc. (IEM), would complete the work under the contract in three stages. "Stage One" called for a simulation exercise involving FEMA and the state of Louisiana that would "feature a catastrophic hurricane striking southeastern Louisiana." "Stage Two" called for "development of the full catastrophic hurricane disaster plan." And "Stage Three" involved unrelated earthquake planning.

 

A task order issued under the contract called for IEM to execute "Stage One" between May 19 and September 30, 2004, at a cost of $518,284. On June 3, 2004, IEM issued a press release announcing that it would "lead the development of a catastrophic hurricane disaster plan for Southeast Louisiana and the City of New Orleans under a more than half a million dollar contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)." A second task order issued on September 23, 2004, required IEM to "complete the development of the SE Louisiana Catastrophic Hurricane plan."    The cost of this task order was $199,969. 

 

The "Background" section of the Scope of Work stated that "the emergency management community has long feared the occurrence of a catastrophic disaster," which the document describes as "an event having unprecedented levels of damage, casualties, dislocation, and disruption that would have nationwide consequences and jeopardize national security..."

 

...According to the Scope of Work, the contact "will assist FEMA, State, and local government to enhance response planning activities and operations by focusing on specific catastrophic disasters:  those disasters that by definition will immediately overwhelm the existing disaster response capabilities of local, State, and Federal Governments." With respect to southeastern Louisiana, the specific "catastrophic disaster" to be addressed was "a slow-moving Category 3, 4, or 5 hurricane that ... crosses New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain." The Scope of Work explained:

 

Various hurricane studies suggest that a slow-moving Category 3 or almost any Category 4 or 5 hurricane approaching Southeast Louisiana from the south could severely damage the heavily populated Southeast portion of the state creating a catastrophe with which the State would not be able to cope without massive help from neighboring states and the Federal Government.

 

The Scope of Work further stated:  "The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness (LOEP) believe that the gravity of the situation calls for an extraordinary level of advance planning to improve government readiness to respond effectively to such an event."

 

The specific disaster scenario contemplated under the contract is strikingly similar to the actual disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina.  The contract envisioned that "a catastrophic hurricane could result in significant numbers of deaths and injuries, trap hundreds of thousands of people in flooded areas, and leave up to one million people homeless." 

 

The Scope of Work expressly directed the contractor to plan for the following specific conditions:

 

*    "Over one million people would evacuate from New Orleans.  Evacuees would crowd shelters throughout Louisiana and adjacent states."

 

*    "Hurricane surge would block highways and trap 300,000 to 350,000 persons in flooded areas.  Storm surge of over 18 feet would overflow flood-protection levees on the Lake Pontchartrain side of New Orleans.  Storm surge combined with heavy rain could leave much of New Orleans under 14 to 17 feet of water.  More than 200 square miles of urban areas would be flooded."

 

*    "It could take weeks to `de-water' (drain) New Orleans:  Inundated pumping stations and damaged pump motors would be inoperable.  Flood-protection levees would prevent drainage of floodwater.  Breaching the levees would be a complicated and politically sensitive problem:  The Corps of Engineers may have to use barges or helicopters to haul earthmoving equipment to open several hundred feet of levee."

 

*    "Rescue operations would be difficult because much of the area would be reachable only by helicopters and boats."

 

*    "Hospitals would be overcrowded with special-needs patients.  Backup generators would run out of fuel or fail before patients could be moved elsewhere."

 

*    "The New Orleans area would be without electric power, food, potable water, medicine, or transportation for an extended time period."

 

*    "Damaged chemical plants and industries could spill hazardous materials."

 

*    "Standing water and disease could threaten public health."

 

*    "There would be severe economic repercussions for the state and region."

 

*    "Outside responders and resources, including the Federal response personnel and materials, would have difficulty entering and working in the affected area."

 

It appears that IEM completed the task order for "Stage One," the hurricane simulation.  An exercise know as "Hurricane Pam," was conducted by FEMA and IEM in July 2004, bringing together emergency officials from 50 parish, state, federal, and volunteer organizations to simulate the conditions described above and plan an emergency response. As a result of the exercise, officials reportedly developed proposals for handling debris removal, sheltering, search and rescue, medical care, and schools. 

 

It is not clear, however, what plans or draft plans, if any, IEM prepared to complete "Stage Two," the development of the final catastrophic hurricane disaster plan.  The task order for "Stage Two" provided that the "period of performance" was September 23, 2004, to September 30, 2005.

 

The basis for the award of the planning work to IEM is also not indicated in the documents we received.  The task orders were issued to IEM by FEMA under an "Indefinite Delivery Vehicle" (IDV) contract between IEM and the General Services Administration.  According to the Federal Procurement Data System, FEMA received only one bid (from IEM) for the task orders.

 

The documents from the Department raise multiple questions about the contract with IEM and the planning for a catastrophic hurricane in southeastern Louisiana.  To help us understand these issues, we request that the Department provide the following documents and information:

 

(1)    Any documents relating to the "Stage One" simulation exercise, including documents prepared for exercise planners and participants, transcripts or minutes of exercise proceedings, participant evaluations, and after action reports;

 

(2)    Any final or draft plans for a catastrophic hurricane in southeastern Louisiana prepared under "Stage Two" of the contract, including any final or draft Catastrophic Hurricane Disaster Plan, Basic Plan Framework, Emergency Support Function Annex, or Support Annex; and

 

(3)    An explanation of the procurement procedures used in selecting IEM for the contract and task orders, as well as a description of IEM's qualifications and the justification for selecting IEM.

 

We recognize that Department officials are engaged in ongoing relief efforts, and we do not want to impair those efforts in any way.  For this reason, we have tailored our request to the discrete set of documents and information set forth above.  To expedite your response to this request, we have enclosed copies of the Scope of Work, task orders, and other documents cited in this letter.

 

Sincerely,

 

Rep. Tom Davis           

Chairman           

 

Rep. Henry Waxman

Ranking Minority Member

[Mercy!]

Breaking News:

 

FEMA Chief Being Removed

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...ll=chi-news-hed

 

Yahoo!

[Steff]

Breaking News:

 

FEMA Chief Being Removed

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...ll=chi-news-hed

 

Yahoo!

 

 

 

Little late there..

[Mercy!]

Little late there.. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

But not to worry. According to Brown's boss:

 

"Chertoff suggested the shift came as the Gulf Coast efforts were entering "a new phase of the recovery operation." He said Brown would return to Washington to oversee the government's response to other potential disasters." - from CNN.com

 

So if a major terrorist attack occurred in Chicago tomorow, "Brownie" would be the Man in charge? Do we have a smilie for hiding under the bed shivering?

[Steff]

But not to worry.  According to Brown's boss:

 

"Chertoff suggested the shift came as the Gulf Coast efforts were entering "a new phase of the recovery operation." He said Brown would return to Washington to oversee the government's response to other potential disasters." - from CNN.com

 

So if a major terrorist attack occurred in Chicago tomorow, "Brownie" would be the Man in charge?  Do we have a smilie for hiding under the bed shivering?

 

 

No, you were in posting.

 

 

We could use an entire line of "s*** hitting the fan" smileys.

[Queen Prawn]

Survivor Story: 6-Year-Old Leads Five Toddlers, Baby To Safety

 

In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard in New Orleans last Thursday, one group of survivors stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader.

 

They were holding hands. Three of the children were about two years old, and one was wearing only diapers. A three-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.

 

Thousands of human stories have flown past relief workers in the last week, but few have touched them as much as the seven children who were found wandering together Thursday at an evacuation point in downtown New Orleans. In the Baton Rouge headquarters of the rescue operation, paramedics tried to coax their names out of them; nurses who examined them stayed up that night, brooding.

 

Transporting the children alone was "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, knowing that their parents are either dead" or that they had been abandoned, said Pat Coveney, a Houston emergency medical technician who put them into the back of his ambulance and drove them out of New Orleans.

 

"It goes back to the same thing," he said. "How did a 6-year-old end up being in charge of six babies?"

 

So far, parents displaced by flooding have reported 220 children missing, but that number is expected to rise, said Mike Kenner of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which will help reunite families. With crowds churning at evacuation points, many children were parted from their parents accidentally; one woman handed her baby up onto a bus, turned around to pick up her suitcase and turned back to find that the bus had left.

 

At the rescue headquarters, a cool tile-floored building swarming with firefighters and paramedics, the children ate cafeteria food and fell into a deep sleep. Deamonte volunteered his vital statistics. He said his father was tall and his mother was short. He gave his address, his phone number and the name of his elementary school.

 

He said the 5-month-old was his brother, Darynael, and that two others were his cousins, Tyreek and Zoria. The other three lived in his apartment building.

 

The children were clean and healthy -- downright plump in the case of the infant, said Joyce Miller, a nurse who examined them. It was clear, she said, that "time had been taken with those kids." The baby was "fat and happy."

 

"This baby child was terrified," he said. "After she relaxed, it was gobble, gobble, gobble."

 

As grim dispatches came in from the field, one woman in the office burst into tears at the thought that the children had been abandoned in New Orleans, said Sharon Howard, assistant secretary of the office of public health.

 

Late the same night, they got an encouraging report: A woman in a shelter in Thibodeaux was searching for seven children. People in the building started clapping at the news. But when they got the mother on the phone, it became clear that she was looking for a different group of seven children, Howard said.

 

"What that made me understand was that this was happening across the state," she said. "That kind of frightened me."

 

The children were transferred to a shelter operated by the Department of Social Services, rooms full of toys and cribs where mentors from the Big Buddy Program were on hand day and night. For the next two days, the staff did detective work.

 

Deamonte began to give more details to Derrick Robertson, a 27-year-old Big Buddy mentor: How he saw his mother cry when he was loaded onto the helicopter. How he promised her he'd take care of his little brother.

 

Late Saturday night, they found Deamonte's mother, who was in a shelter in San Antonio along with the four mothers of the other five children. Catrina Williams, 26, saw her children's pictures on a web site set up over the weekend by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. By Sunday, a private plane from Angel Flight was waiting to take the children to Texas.

 

In a phone interview, Williams said she is the kind of mother who doesn't let her children out of her sight. What happened the Thursday after the hurricane, she said, was that her family, trapped in an apartment building on the 3200 block of Third Street in New Orleans, began to feel desperate.

 

The water wasn't going down and they had been living without light, food or air conditioning for four days. The baby needed milk and the milk was gone. So she decided they would evacuate by helicopter. When a helicopter arrived to pick them up they were told to send the children first and that the helicopter would be back in 25 minutes. She and her neighbors had to make a quick decision.

 

It was a wrenching moment. Williams' father, Adrian Love, told her to send the children ahead.

 

"I told them to go ahead and give them up, because me, I would give my life for my kids. They should feel the same way," said Love, 48. "They were shedding tears. I said, Let the babies go.' "

 

His daughter and her friends followed his advice.

 

"We did what we had to do for our kids, because we love them," Williams said.

 

The helicopter didn't come back. While the children were transported to Baton Rouge, their parents wound up in Texas, and although Williams was reassured that they would be reunited, days passed without any contact. On Sunday, she was elated.

 

"All I know is I just want to see my kids," she said. "Everything else will just fall into place."

 

At 3 p.m. Sunday, DSS workers said good-by to seven children who now had names: Deamonte Love; Darynael Love; Zoria Love and her brother Tyreek. The girl who cried "Gabby!" was Gabrielle Janae Alexander. The girl they called Peanut was Degahney Carter. And the boy whom they called G was actually Lee -- Leewood Moore Jr.

 

The children were strapped into car seats and driven to an airport, where they were flown to San Antonio to rejoin their parents. As they loaded into the van, the shelter workers looked in the windows; some wept.

 

The baby gaped with delight in the front seat. Deamonte was hanging onto Robertson's neck so desperately that Robertson decided, at the last minute, to ride with him as far as Lafayette.

 

Shelter worker Kori Thomas, held Zoria, 3, who reached out to smooth her eyebrows. Tyreek put a single fat finger on the van window by way of goodbye.

 

Robertson said he doubted the children would remember much of the helicopter evacuation, the Causeway, the sweltering heat or the smell of the flooded city.

 

"I think what's going to stick with them is that they survived Hurricane Katrina," he said. "And that they were loved."

 

******************************************************************

Had to share - brought tears to my eyes.

[LosMediasBlancas]

I was JUST gonna post this. Wow, just when you think this story can't tug at your heart strings any more.

[Balta1701]

I have an unconfirmed story saying that CNN has filed a lawsuit against government agencies that have been seeking to bar press organizations from showing pictures of the cleanup/recovery of the disaster in New Orleans (a few days ago, FEMA said that they didn't want people taking photos of bodies, etc.)

[Balta1701]

Oh Mercy...

 

    This afternoon, Governor Fletcher's Communications Office issued the following press release:

    Governor Ernie Fletcher calls on faith-based organizations to partner with Division of Emergency Management to assist hurricane evacuees in Kentucky

 

    Toll-free hotline established for housing assistance for hurricane relief

 

    "FRANKFORT, Ky. - Governor Ernie Fletcher is calling on faith-based organizations to contact state emergency management agencies to coordinate disaster relief efforts through the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management.

 

    "Many churches and other organizations have opened their doors to provide a place to eat and sleep to evacuees coming to Kentucky," said Governor Fletcher.  "And with the need expected to grow in the coming weeks, I'm calling on faith-based organizations to coordinate efforts through our emergency management offices to make sure the evacuees are getting the care and attention they need."

 

    [...]

 

    Emergency officials also want to remind evacuees that they must register as soon as possible with their local American Red Cross chapter and with FEMA.

 

    AMERICAN RED CROSS NUMBERS TO CALL TO REGISTER:

    1-800-438-4636    ( 1-800-"GET HELP")

    1-800-438-4637  ( 1-800-"HELP NOW")"

 

That second number, the one that ends in 4637? It's a phone sex service.

[Rex Hudler]

Yeah, Jeanne did a loop out at sea and looked rather inconsequential before she changed her mind and doubled back for us.

 

There was one a few years ago (can't remember the name) that cossed the peninsula once, went up through the eastern Gulf states, turned east and broke almost completely up before exiting up in coastal Georga or the Carolinas, reforming and cominng back to make another Florida landfall.  Not a very high strength storm (or I'd remember the name), but it was an odd one.

 

I remember that one....... it was weird

[Balta1701]

From the Wall Street Journal:

 

In Meraux, the smell of petroleum hung thick in the air. Across the highway from a Murphy Oil Corp. U.S.A. refinery, two men in yellow hazmat suits drained the contents of tanker into a canal, using a thick black hose. The canal smelled like gasoline. Asked what they were doing the men declined to comment. "I got a family, I'm not talking," one man said.

[FlaSoxxJim]

From the Wall Street Journal:

I know the environmental disasters in the making are going to be tragic, but getting details on criminal environmental abuses (which are going to be rampant) is going to be very depressing.

[greasywheels121]

Holy hell...It's eerie how much the lyrics of Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" mirrors the Hurricane...

 

here comes the rain again

falling from the stars

drenched in my pain again

becoming who we are

 

as my memory rests

but never forgets what I lost

wake me up when september ends

[Heads22]

Flaxx....think we'll hit the Greek alphabet this hurricane season?

[FlaSoxxJim]

Flaxx....think we'll hit the Greek alphabet this hurricane season?

No, but we're going to crtainly get down toward the neighbothood of xyz.

[Rex Kickass]

But the names stop at W.

[FlaSoxxJim]

But the names stop at W.

Well, I still don't think we're getting through them, but we could get close.

[Balta1701]

Well, I guess in a way it's comforting to know that even when likely thousands of Americans are lying dead in an abandoned shell of an American city, the Bush Administration still puts Rewarding its campaign contributors at the top of its list of priorities. I mean, if Halliburton and Bechtel can't turn a profit, what is this world coming to?

 

Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

 

At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.

 

One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.

 

Bechtel National Inc., a unit of San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp., has also been selected by FEMA to provide short-term housing for people displaced by the hurricane. Bush named Bechtel's CEO to his Export Council and put the former CEO of Bechtel Energy in charge of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

 

Experts say it has been common practice in both Republican and Democratic administrations for policy makers to take lobbying jobs once they leave office, and many of the same companies seeking contracts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina have already received billions of dollars for work in Iraq.

 

Halliburton alone has earned more than $9 billion. Pentagon audits released by Democrats in June showed $1.03 billion in "questioned" costs and $422 million in "unsupported" costs for Halliburton's work in Iraq.

[EvilMonkey]

I have an unconfirmed story saying that CNN has filed a lawsuit against government agencies that have been seeking to bar press organizations from showing pictures of the cleanup/recovery of the disaster in New Orleans (a few days ago, FEMA said that they didn't want people taking photos of bodies, etc.)

 

If I remember right, during 9/11 the media didn't want to show pictures of the bodies and such. Something about not wanting to 'inflame the populace'. How come they DO want to show the bodies now?

[EvilMonkey]

Well, I guess in a way it's comforting to know that even when likely thousands of Americans are lying dead in an abandoned shell of an American city, the Bush Administration still puts Rewarding its campaign contributors at the top of its list of priorities.  I mean, if Halliburton and Bechtel can't turn a profit, what is this world coming to?

 

The operative word in there is SOME. Lots to go around, and some of them are bound to go to Bush supporters. And also, whenever it is brought up that the eeeeevil Haliburton is working on a recovery effort now, it is not brought up that they were awarded the contract, over a year ago, thru a competitive bid process.

[Balta1701]

If I remember right, during 9/11 the media didn't want to show pictures of the bodies and such.  Something about not wanting to 'inflame the populace'. How come they DO want to show the bodies now?

Actually I'm fairly certain that they did show pictures of what bodies there actually were (most of which, especially from the trade center, were unrecoverable as whole people). The ones that they were especially careful with were the pictures of people falling as they jumped from the twin towers...and again, I swear I have seen those images broadcast.

 

The real key will be, of course, how these images are used. The reality is that in that city, they're slowing down some of the pumps because they're afraid the pumps will be clogged with body parts. How do you cover that story? How do you do so without sickening people? Even I don't know.

 

The question will be how the footage is used. I'm sure each person out there has a different line in their head that, when they see it crossed, they'll know it. But that doesn't justify not allowing any images of it at all. Not only is this a catastrophe, but it's also history, and it deserves to be fully documented.

 

If you see someone go overboard...change the channel.

[White Sox Josh]

While i hope the Sox win and i get upset if they play poorly them not doing well is nothing compared to what these people are going through. My god. It must be terrible. Whatever we can do to help them without actually going out their (talking about people on this board) than we need to do it. Donate money, donate supplies, whatever it takes. I think we have realized how small baseball actually is in the world.

[Mercy!]

If I remember right, during 9/11 the media didn't want to show pictures of the bodies and such.  Something about not wanting to 'inflame the populace'. How come they DO want to show the bodies now?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Depending on which news source you utilize, you will see different images, based on that source’s guidelines. During 9/11, the issue was whether or not to show video of falling/jumping people in their last agonies. Most (but not all) US outlets opted not to do so, or to stop doing so.

 

Whether or not they “DO want to show the bodies now” is not the issue, I think. Rather, do we want the government to decide what a free and unfettered press may or may not cover?

 

“In an e-mail to CNN staff on Friday, [News Group President] Walton said the network filed the the lawsuit to "prohibit any agency from restricting its ability to fully and fairly cover" the hurricane victim recovery process.

 

"As seen most recently from war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, from tsunami-ravaged South Asia and from Hurricane Katrina's landfall along the Gulf," Walton wrote, "CNN has shown that it is capable of balancing vigorous reporting with respect for private concerns."

 

CNN filed suit against Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown, arguing that the officials who announced the decision were acting on FEMA's behalf.

 

"For an agency to unilaterally ban all coverage of a major component of its governmental function, that is, recovery of the deceased victims of the tragedy, is unprecedented," CNN argued in its legal brief. "Instead, the agency has made a subjective, content-based determination that publicizing the operation would be 'without dignity.'"

 

CNN's brief argued, "It is not the place of government to replace its own internal judgment for that of a free and independent media."

 

Because of controversy about how FEMA and other agencies handled the disaster response, CNN lawyers argued, "it is even more vitally important for the public, Congress and the administration to have an independent view of the conduct of this important phase of the operation." - Link to CNN.com article

[FlaSoxxJim]

The real key will be, of course, how these images are used.

 

Food for thought. Once there is stock footage available it will almost certainly eventually be used down the line in negative campaign ads the likes of which we've never seen before.

 

Can you imagine an ad with a soundtrack simply repeating Bush's "But what whent wrong" over and over as accompanyment to bloated bodies floating down the street, holed up in attics, piled up to be stuffed in body bags?

 

Of course, precisely the same footage can be run to the tune of Nagin's "If you stay, you're on your own. . . "

 

Lots of PACs took a lesson from the seeing the effectiveness of the Swift Bulls***ters for Defeating Kerry in Any Way Possible.

 

Thing is, lots of the body images already exist, despite the current media gag order. Lots of people have been taking snapshots of all aspects of the carnage since day one, and those are going to get out. The images of the dead are not nearly as controllable here as they are in the case of US soldiers coming home in flag-draped caskets.

[Texsox]

But the names stop at W.

It always comes back to the President, doesn't it.