Bush briefed on Levee breaches before Katrina Hit

[NorthSideSox72]

once again, blaming bush personally is just an excuse to either side with the democratic party or to simply not think out the issue

No... blaming Bush is somewhat lazy, if that is all that is done. Bush does deserve some blame of course, and he was dishonest. Again.

 

But as I've said before on this topic, the biggest screw-ups were at the FEMA and DHS levels. Brown lost his job, as he should have. Bush should be hammered for hiring that guy to such an important post that he had no reason to be in - and he has been. Chertoff, it is becoming clear, also screwed up big time, and should be hammered. And he is. Blanco is clearly no leader at all, and should be voted out of office. And she will be.

 

And I'll also point out again that, while there were of course some state and local screw ups that were quite large... this was, by nature, not a local disaster. Response to a regional disaster HAS to be coordinated at the level of government capable of bringing the resources to the equation that are needed. In this case, clearly, that was the Feds. Therefore, yes, this was absolutely on the shoulders of FEMA. I know this because I have studied MCI and disaster response, written a paper or two on it, and worked in 2 of the three divisions of the public safety apparatus. The locals will respond with everything they can, and with the exception of the cowards who left their posts, they did. But they didn't have the secondary resources they needed.

[Rex Kickass]

I think it's entirely appropriate to blame Bush for seeming out of touch during the crisis and for lying through his teeth about it afterwords.

 

I think it's entirely appropriate to blame Nagin and Blanco for not doing what was necessary to protect the people in the city of New Orleans and state of Louisiana.

 

And I think its entirely appropriate to use it as justification to fire the three of them.

[YASNY]

I think it's entirely appropriate to blame Bush for seeming out of touch during the crisis and for lying through his teeth about it afterwords.

 

I think it's entirely appropriate to blame Nagin and Blanco for not doing what was necessary to protect the people in the city of New Orleans and state of Louisiana.

 

And I think its entirely appropriate to use it as justification to fire the three of them.

 

This, I agree with.

[NorthSideSox72]

I think it's entirely appropriate to blame Bush for seeming out of touch during the crisis and for lying through his teeth about it afterwords.

 

I think it's entirely appropriate to blame Nagin and Blanco for not doing what was necessary to protect the people in the city of New Orleans and state of Louisiana.

 

And I think its entirely appropriate to use it as justification to fire the three of them.

I agree it is appropriate to blame them. I just think that they are secondary on the list of people who screwed up. If we fired Nagin, Blanco and Bush for it, and left Brown, Chertoff and FEMA alone, we'd just end up down the same road again.

[Rex Kickass]

This, I agree with.

*passes out in surprise of agreement of any kind with YAS.*

 

Glad to have ya aboard partner!

[kapkomet]

I think it's entirely appropriate to blame Bush for seeming out of touch during the crisis and for lying through his teeth about it afterwords.

 

I think it's entirely appropriate to blame Nagin and Blanco for not doing what was necessary to protect the people in the city of New Orleans and state of Louisiana.

 

And I think its entirely appropriate to use it as justification to fire the three of them.

And I agree as well.

[Balta1701]

Here's something scary...I'm about to agree also.

 

Heard more of that phone call 2k5 alluded to on the news this mornin' while waiting for the rains to die down so I could bike in. At least based on the report from Fox 11 L.A., the call 2k5 was quoting was one that happened in the afternoon, at roughly noon. Link.

 

That one doesn't nearly bother me as much as the one that evening, the "Give us everything you've got" call. Why? Because the Levee breaches had only occurred a couple of hours before she placed that call, which may not have even been time for it to be noticed by major authorities unless they were standing right there.

 

But if Blanco couldn't confirm by the call to Bush at 9:00 that night that the levees had breached (that call we haven't heard in this AP release I believe), then something was seriously wrong with the way Blanco was getting information. That's half a day after the breaches...she certainly should have made certain beforehand that there was some means of investigating those levees right after the storm passed, or at least forced someone into the city to give her a real report.

 

These are the sorts of things that cost lives...and the sort of things that decent folk resign when they realize they did.

[kapkomet]

Here's something scary...I'm about to agree also.

 

Heard more of that phone call 2k5 alluded to on the news this mornin' while waiting for the rains to die down so I could bike in.  At least based on the report from Fox 11 L.A., the call 2k5 was quoting was one that happened in the afternoon, at roughly noon.  Link.

 

That one doesn't nearly bother me as much as the one that evening, the "Give us everything you've got" call.  Why?  Because the Levee breaches had only occurred a couple of hours before she placed that call, which may not have even been time for it to be noticed by major authorities unless they were standing right there.

 

But if Blanco couldn't confirm by the call to Bush at 9:00 that night that the levees had breached (that call we haven't heard in this AP release I believe), then something was seriously wrong with the way Blanco was getting information.  That's half a day after the breaches...she certainly should have made certain beforehand that there was some means of investigating those levees right after the storm passed, or at least forced someone into the city to give her a real report.

 

These are the sorts of things that cost lives...and the sort of things that decent folk resign when they realize they did.

 

What is our government really for if they can't get their stories straight in a time like this? I mean I know disasters means that you can't have it all right, but the thing that's sickening about this whole thing is they are all lying their asses off about what happened to save their own tails. They all are to blame to certain extents. However, IMO, the federal response is the last in the pecking order because the people that are there all the time should know how to deal with their own areas the best, period.

[Balta1701]

What is our government really for if they can't get their stories straight in a time like this?  I mean I know disasters means that you can't have it all right, but the thing that's sickening about this whole thing is they are all lying their asses off about what happened to save their own tails.  They all are to blame to certain extents.  However, IMO, the federal response is the last in the pecking order because the people that are there all the time should know how to deal with their own areas the best, period.

See, I disagree with the last part of that, because this was simply not a local problem after the storm hit. Before the storm...planning for a storm, setting up emergency systems that could survive the storm, coming up with and activating evacuation plans, those are local responsibilites.

 

But when a major, interstate disaster strikes, you simply have to assume that some state level agencies will be overwhelmed, simply due to the fact that they're just too local. If communications for 1 police department go down, it could screw up a response for dozens of different precincts if there is no one up at the top giving orders and controlling the situation.

[Rex Kickass]

Yes/No to that Kap. FEMA also had a plan of action mapped together with NO and LA for the very occurrence that happened this fall. They worked together to plan a response. They are all equally responsible for the lack of one.

[NorthSideSox72]

See, I disagree with the last part of that, because this was simply not a local problem after the storm hit.  Before the storm...planning for a storm, setting up emergency systems that could survive the storm, coming up with and activating evacuation plans, those are local responsibilites.

 

But when a major, interstate disaster strikes, you simply have to assume that some state level agencies will be overwhelmed, simply due to the fact that they're just too local.  If communications for 1 police department go down, it could screw up a response for dozens of different precincts if there is no one up at the top giving orders and controlling the situation.

^^^^^^^^

 

I understand where Kap is coming from, and it makes logical sense to put this on local shoulders at the point of impact. But it is just not practical to expect the locals to do anything other than respond to individual emergencies as best as they can. A regional disaster requires a regional response - otherwise, you get pandemonium, just like we saw.

[YASNY]

^^^^^^^^

 

I understand where Kap is coming from, and it makes logical sense to put this on local shoulders at the point of impact.  But it is just not practical to expect the locals to do anything other than respond to individual emergencies as best as they can.  A regional disaster requires a regional response - otherwise, you get pandemonium, just like we saw.

 

Yes, but still, the local and state levels have to be the line of FIRST response. Hold the fort, so to speak. They failed there. The Feds failed in their responsibilities as well, by not efficiently getting the wheels in motion to properly handle a regional disaster.

[NorthSideSox72]

Yes, but still, the local and state levels have to be the line of FIRST response.  Hold the fort, so to speak.  They failed there.  The Feds failed in their responsibilities as well, by not efficiently getting the wheels in motion to properly handle a regional disaster.

First responders are trained to think in terms of short time frames. Everything about their training deals in that. So yes, once it was safe to advance out of their shelters or whatever, then the first response should occur. And actually, it did - many local communities had all their EMS, fire, rescue and L/E assets in place (those that didn't abandon ship or were forced to evacuate the area).

 

But they were entirely overwhelmed as soon as they responded to a few emergencies. That pushes up to county-wide, and they had no assets to distribute because the entire county is beaten up. Then state, etc., and they all have nothing to give. So actually, once a regional disaster occurs, it is imperitive for the Feds and/or State (depending on scale of incident) to immediately take control of coordination and communications. Otherwise, that first response is like attacking Godzilla with a bunch of flyswatters.

[YASNY]

First responders are trained to think in terms of short time frames.  Everything about their training deals in that.  So yes, once it was safe to advance out of their shelters or whatever, then the first response should occur.  And actually, it did - many local communities had all their EMS, fire, rescue and L/E assets in place (those that didn't abandon ship or were forced to evacuate the area). 

 

But they were entirely overwhelmed as soon as they responded to a few emergencies.  That pushes up to county-wide, and they had no assets to distribute because the entire county is beaten up.  Then state, etc., and they all have nothing to give.  So actually, once a regional disaster occurs, it is imperitive for the Feds and/or State (depending on scale of incident) to immediately take control of coordination and communications.  Otherwise, that first response is like attacking Godzilla with a bunch of flyswatters.

 

I still can't get past all those school buses sitting there in the flood waters. They should have used those to get as many people as possible out of there. That's the type of 'first response' I'm talking about.

Edited March 3, 2006 by YASNY

[Rex Kickass]

You know what bothered me about that picture? If they decided to use those busses to get out of N.O., how far away would they have gotten. Didn't they say it was a 36 hour trip to Baton Rouge at the time? If you were in charge - weigh the possibilities - Have them ride out the storm in a building designed to withstand 200mph winds or risk getting thousands of people stranded in a schoolbus for the heart of the storm?

[YASNY]

You know what bothered me about that picture? If they decided to use those busses to get out of N.O., how far away would they have gotten. Didn't they say it was a 36 hour trip to Baton Rouge at the time? If you were in charge - weigh the possibilities - Have them ride out the storm in a building designed to withstand 200mph winds or risk getting thousands of people stranded in a schoolbus for the heart of the storm?

 

Driving west ... away from the storm ... would have been a good idea.

[Rex Kickass]

I understand that - and although I think the buses are a stunning picture and says a lot, I wonder if that was something considered. And I wonder once the reality of the actual storm's intensity was truly there, if they actually had enough time to make it out safely.

[kapkomet]

See, I disagree with the last part of that, because this was simply not a local problem after the storm hit.  Before the storm...planning for a storm, setting up emergency systems that could survive the storm, coming up with and activating evacuation plans, those are local responsibilites.

 

But when a major, interstate disaster strikes, you simply have to assume that some state level agencies will be overwhelmed, simply due to the fact that they're just too local.  If communications for 1 police department go down, it could screw up a response for dozens of different precincts if there is no one up at the top giving orders and controlling the situation.

It's already been addressed, but I'm NOT saying there's no blame for the federal gov't, but IMO if the locals would have been better, the impact would have been lessened.

[YASNY]

I understand that - and although I think the buses are a stunning picture and says a lot, I wonder if that was something considered. And I wonder once the reality of the actual storm's intensity was truly there, if they actually had enough time to make it out safely.

 

Isn't that what leadership is all about? Proactive thinking and think outside of the box?

[Rex Kickass]

And risk management.

[NorthSideSox72]

I still can't get past all those school buses sitting there in the flood waters.  They should have used those to get as many people as possible out of there.  That's the type of 'first response' I'm talking about.

That certainly was a screw-up on someone's part. No denying it.

[Mplssoxfan]

Here's a lenghty piece no how royally screwed up the NOPD's command and control was after the storm.

 

A long story deserves a long excerpt, don't you think?

 

The Hurricane Katrina crisis began for Bruneau on Monday, August 29th, shortly after the storm had passed through. A young woman lay dead in the middle of the 1900 block of Jackson Avenue. Her skull was crushed, and a fallen street light, blown down by the ninety-five-mile-an-hour winds, lay beside her. Along Jackson Avenue, people were emerging from shotgun shacks into a world of smashed oak trees and downed power lines. Some of them knew the woman. She had gone out during the storm to buy drugs.

 

Bruneau’s police radio carried reports from the Lower Ninth Ward, three miles away: it was flooding rapidly, from a breach in the so-called Industrial Canal. But that was another district’s problem. Bruneau radioed for the coroner. Nobody showed up. Bruneau called again. Nothing. An hour passed. The dispatcher told Bruneau that floodwater was heading toward him. The Seventeenth Street and London Avenue Canals had breached their levees, and Lake Pontchartrain was pouring into northern New Orleans. Bruneau asked for an ambulance. None was available, because most of them had been moved out of the city before the storm. He asked the dispatcher to try the coroner again, but the coroner’s office was flooded.

 

Bruneau waited by the body for two hours, and finally left it with a patrolman and drove off to another call. When he checked back, in the early afternoon, the woman still lay uncovered on the hot pavement. Standard operating procedure, it seemed, no longer applied. In some nearby storm wreckage, he and the patrolman found a deflated water-bed mattress. Neighbors watched as the two men rolled the woman onto it and hoisted her into the back seat of Bruneau’s unmarked white Crown Victoria. He explained to the neighbors that he planned to deliver the woman to the morgue. “So they wouldn’t think I was up to no good,” he told me. After informing the dispatcher that he had a 29-U, a victim of an unclassified death, in his back seat, he drove to Charity Hospital, about a mile away. Water was approaching the building’s steps, and the doctors and staff members were evacuating. They couldn’t take the body. At Tulane University Hospital, down the street, an emergency-room doctor refused to let Bruneau in the door.

 

By this time, Bruneau knew from police reports that his own house and car were underwater. He parked a few blocks from the Superdome, staring through the windshield at the huge structure rising incongruously from deep water. “I was dazed and confused,” he told me later. All he had was his uniform, the cash in his wallet, and his gun. He didn’t know what to do with the corpse. The entire edifice of city government seemed to have dissolved in the floodwaters. He sat gazing at the Superdome for two hours. Finally, the dispatcher got back to him.

 

“Undo what you did,” she said.

 

“You mean dump the body?”

 

“Undo what you did.”

 

Bruneau drove back to Jackson Avenue. A sergeant met him there with a body bag, and the neighbors watched again as the cops pulled the woman out of the car and onto a strip of grass. They unrolled her from the water bed and zipped her into the bag. This time, Bruneau didn’t know what to say to the neighbors, so he simply drove away. During the days that followed, he headed back toward Jackson Avenue every now and then. The 1900 block eventually lay four blocks into the flood zone, and he stood at the water’s edge and peered through his binoculars. The woman floated this way and that, and came to rest about half a block from where he’d first found her.

[samclemens]

plenty of blame to spread all around.

[Kyyle23]

I just read this thread through and realized that Kap, Yasny, Balta, and Rex all agreed on the same point. In a political thread.

 

I shall now repent and await the end of the world.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I just read this thread through and realized that Kap, Yasny, Balta, and Rex all agreed on the same point.  In a political thread.

 

I shall now repent and await the end of the world.