Bush and Katrina: Worse than you imagined

Photo credit: Kyle Shank, click image for more information.

Hurricane Katrina made landfall on Monday August 29. Bush administration officials claimed that they didn't know that the New Orleans levees had breeched until Tuesday, August 30.

However, congressional investigators have confirmed that an eye-witness account of the flooding reached the White House the night on the storm [NYT]

"FYI from FEMA," said an e-mail message from the agency's public affairs staff describing the helicopter flight, sent Monday night at 9:27 to the chief of staff of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and recently unearthed by investigators. Conditions, the message said, "are far more serious than media reports are currently reflecting. Finding extensive flooding and more stranded people than they had thought — also a number of fires."

Michael D. Brown, who was the director of FEMA until he resigned under pressure on Sept. 12, said in a telephone interview Thursday that he personally notified the White House of this news that night, though he declined to identify the official he spoke to. [NYT]

On Tuesday, Bush cheerfully told the world that New Orleans had "dodged a bullet," knowing full well that the city was flooding. The president didn't even get home from his vacation at the Crawford Ranch until Wednesday, August 31.

Like Tristero, I'm just too angry to say much more. This is truly unforgivable.

Comments

[squashed Lemon]

So much for 'Bush cares about black people"

This is going to keep haunting him.

Another item the media hasn't dig yet. The New orleans reconstruction is full of incompetence and corruption. No we are ready for next big hurricane in the next 2 years.

FEMA is still fubar.

[cfrost]

My guess is that on Karl Rove's computer there is a GIS map of New Orleans with four overlays: average income, race, party affiliation, and elevation. From the GOP perspective flooding wasn't a problem, rather, it was the solution to a problem.

[Squashed]

Posted by: cfrost | February 10, 2006 at 01:46 PM

not the western part. but it is true, that new orleans parish is the only stronghold left for democrats.

If Democrat is half smart, they gonna follow where people move/spread and pump up the 'bring down GOP' talk.

people are very bitter, but the democrats are practically no show in La. More active grassroot in La. will bring louisiana blue in less than a year.

[J. Allen]

And to think, Clinton was impeached for simple adultry and for lying (something Bush does on a daily basis it seems), a personal matter, yet would they even think of impeaching Bush and Cheney? I think Bush could probably invite Osama bin Laden over for dinner at the White House, and the most that would come out of it would be a co-op'd piece in the back page of the financial section about his having dinner with an oil tycoon from SA.

[Squashed Lemon]

Nurse Charged With Sedition For Criticizing Bush

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/2/10/154248/969

"I am furious with the tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence of this government," it began. "The Katrina tragedy in the U.S. shows that the emperor has no clothes!" She mentioned that she was "a VA nurse" working with returning vets. "The public has no sense of the additional devastating human and financial costs of post-traumatic stress disorder," she wrote, and she worried about the hundreds of thousands of additional cases that might result from Katrina and the Iraq War.

"Bush, Cheney, Chertoff, Brown, and Rice should be tried for criminal negligence," she wrote. "This country needs to get out of Iraq now and return to our original vision and priorities of caring for land and people and resources rather than killing for oil. . . . We need to wake up and get real here, and act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit.

Otherwise, many more of us will be facing living hell in these times."

Her computer was seized, Berg wrote a memo to her bosses seeking information and an explanation. Mel Hooker, chief of the human resources management service at the Albuquerque VA, wrote Berg back on November 9:

[Steve]

Dear Lindsay:
The feds got to NOLA in just about the time that they were expected to (3-4 days) and from what I’ve read a little faster than they have historically arrived at previous disaster scenes.
The real lesson of Katrina and every major disaster in our history is that if your emergency plan is sit on your butt and wait for the government to save you, you’re doomed.
I’m prepared to take care of myself and my family in an emergency. Just about everything you need to do the same is available at the supermarket or the sporting goods store. I suggest that you educate yourself, make a list and go shopping.
I look at government employees this way: I ask myself, would I count on the lazy jerk behind the counter at the DMV to come and save my life? Nope.
I don’t think you would either.

[gordo]

Wow, Steve, you sure are great at planning. Too bad Bush didn't put someone in charge of FEMA who knew how to plan.

In 2001, a hurricane hitting NOLA was one of the three most likely "nightmare scenarios" identified by FEMA. They had four years to have a response in place, including housing for the displaced, security, search and rescue, contingencies, and initial reconstruction. Instead, everything has been handled on a purely ad hoc basis. Was Drownie in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or the Federal Emergency Reaction Agency?

[Squashed lemon]

The feds got to NOLA in just about the time that they were expected to (3-4 days) and from what I’ve read a little faster than they have historically arrived at previous disaster scenes.

Posted by: Steve | February 10, 2006 at 05:43 PM

Please provide link supporting your 'about time' claim. thanks.

[bob mcmanus]

What cfrost said. Repeat after me:"There is no incompetence."

Norquist reads Mao and says "Personnell is policy." Was it DiIulio who said there was domestic policy in the White House?

They do not plan. Their time is spent on putting the correct people into position, increasing each's influence and power, or not as in the case of Brown, and waiting for an opportunity to arise. An event like 9/11 or Katrina. These events will always come.

Then on the fly, rapid-response, within hours the very top levels of management (Bush,Cheney,Rove) decide how to maximise the advantage from each catastrophe or event. They count on loyal, but uninformed and powerless middle-management to implement the decisions. Brownie did not know the decision had been made, probably on Saturday after the NOAA briefing, to ethnic cleanse New Orleans.

[bob mcmanus]

The key, and Brownie is starting to realize it, is that it wasn't incompetence to put Brown at FEMA, Brown was put at FEMA because Brown was incompetent.

[gordo]

Bob--

More accurately, Brown was put in charge of FEMA to enrich Joe Albaugh. Albaugh's experience in disaster management was running Bush's 2000 campaign. When Albaugh got the top spot at FEMA, he chose Brown as his #2. When Albaugh left to lobby for KBR, he recommended Brown as his successor.

So who got a bunch of fat no-bid reconstruction contracts? Can you say KBR?

Just before Katrina, Brown was on his way out of government service. I don't know for sure what he was planning to do after, but I'm guessing there was an office waiting for him at KBR.

[cfrost]

“Dear Lindsay:”

Steve, this is a public forum, that’s what this is all about.

“The feds got to NOLA in just about the time that they were expected to (3-4 days) and from what I’ve read a little faster than they have historically arrived at previous disaster scenes.”

Merely arriving is about all FEMA did, and that’s what’s got folks upset. Hate to have to talk to you as if you were a child, but holy shit…

“The real lesson of Katrina and every major disaster in our history is that if your emergency plan is sit on your butt and wait for the government to save you, you’re doomed.”

Wrong. Take the Loma Prieta earthquake in Calif. 1989. Building standards rigidly enforced by government entities based to a large extent on research funded by the government saved literally millions of structures and thousands of lives. The highway patrol and police agencies had traffic rerouted around hazards within hours. Within days, government found ways to move people, goods and services around and over SF Bay. Government moved in to assess which structures were safe, which needed repair, and which needed to be condemned. Post disaster assessments were made to improve things for the next inevitable earthquake, and so on. Earthquakes of a similar magnitude in other countries grind up people and houses wholesale and precipitate revolutions.

“I’m prepared to take care of myself and my family in an emergency. Just about everything you need to do the same is available at the supermarket or the sporting goods store. I suggest that you educate yourself, make a list and go shopping.”

Steve, if you want to have any friends that are not creepy cranks, don’t let on that you’re a survivalist.

“I look at government employees this way: I ask myself, would I count on the lazy jerk behind the counter at the DMV to come and save my life? Nope.
I don’t think you would either.”

Ever had a service job? The kind where you actually have to work with the public? If you did, you would know that 99% of people are perfectly nice and civil and 1% are flaming assholes. You, as a service employee are expected to treat everyone well, but you know, sometimes one just forgets when dealing with the assholes.

[Steve]

Frosty:
If having a first aid kit, a few gallons of spring water and some cans of ravioli in the basement is too much for you, there is nothing more I can say to drum some common sense into you.
Of course you havn't a word to say about the local or state response to Katrina because you don't give a damn about the people of NOLA, you care about scoring political points against George Bush. politics trumps everything to you guys.
My point stands: No matter who is in the white house, if the road and rail system is impassable and the airport is out of commision or even if they're not, it's going to take time for the feds to get to you so you should be at least minimally prepared.

Steve's common sense guide for the survivalist:
Food, water, band aids=good
claymores, fallout shelter, Browning M2=overkill

[Squashed Lemon]

Posted by: Steve | February 11, 2006 at 01:49 PM

lol.

Hey steve, don't tell me you are one of those stupid burblander who just waving arms and has no idea whatca talking about.

one suggestion if you are trying to fake a real survivalist. tone down the 'cans of ravioli' case for long term survival, you need much more carbo than a can of ravioli can give a day. Second, you want to pack high protein density. Try cans of corned beef instead.

for carbo source if you have heat source you want to pack things like oatmeal, rice, gritz. (It lasts a long time.)

so, the fact yer bringing up band-aid and cans of ravioli (aka. junior camping trip) means you don't have a effing clue what yer talking about. Yer the type who run credit card through McDonald after the storm, and was angry when told, the phone line doesn't work. Gotta pay cash. (ie. yer stupid, and probably would be dead already from dehydration or bullet in your head by third weeks.)

[squashed lemon]

Posted by: Steve | February 11, 2006 at 01:49 PM

and ps. STFU.

or I'll shove that imaginary band aid and cans of ravioli. Try keeping it real for once. You disgust me with your bloviating about cans of ravioli and band-aid while people are dead from dehydration.

People like you are the one I don't mind kicking from rescue boat and watch you cry begging for your life.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

“The real lesson of Katrina and every major disaster in our history is that if your emergency plan is sit on your butt and wait for the government to save you, you’re doomed.”

Wrong. Take the Loma Prieta earthquake in Calif. 1989. Building standards rigidly enforced by government entities based to a large extent on research funded by the government saved literally millions of structures and thousands of lives. The highway patrol and police agencies had traffic rerouted around hazards within hours. Within days, government found ways to move people, goods and services around and over SF Bay. Government moved in to assess which structures were safe, which needed repair, and which needed to be condemned. Post disaster assessments were made to improve things for the next inevitable earthquake, and so on. Earthquakes of a similar magnitude in other countries grind up people and houses wholesale and precipitate revolutions.

Thank you, cfrost. I was there for that earthquake, and likewise the Northridge quake, which I also lived through, where the 10 Freeway was rebuilt tout-de-suite, despite people moaning that it would take months or even years. That was under President Clinton, whose FEMA actually did something. Sorry if that supports the Democrats and gives an F to Bush's FEMA, but them's the facts. It can be done well, and in 1989 and 1994 it was. In 2005, it wasn't. There are plenty of republicans I would have trusted to put someone in Michael Brown's seat, and who would have actually done something about it. Eisenhower, for one, or even Reagan, would probably have had a conscience about it. Sorry it offends you so much to hear that Bush made a bad mistake, which got people killed who didn't have to die, but it's the simple truth. If you're rebuking people for speaking that truth, I rebuke you.