Hurricane Katrina

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Spock

but that's the problem, the STATE had two days advanced Disaster status and COULD have done something....but didn't.

it did not have the resources and asked the federal government to help out before the hurricane hit... read the timeline (the one i linked earlier in the thread has links to details about the conversations on the matter)

[Spock]

They had enough resources to *start*. To sit back and do nothing was inexcusable then and now.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by bmilder

The third catastrophe on FEMA's list in 2001 was a massive earthquake in San Francisco. So I really hope that FEMA, the Bush administration, Gov. Schwarzenegger, and the local officials in SF are now taking any preventative measures possible and working out the kinks in evacuation and relief plans, if they haven't done so already .

I hope so, too!

But in the meantime, I have lots of water and food and flashlites, etc. stored up, since I live in California and have been thru several earthquakes, including the Sylmar one in the 70's when we got .... evacuated!

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Spock

They had enough resources to *start*. To sit back and do nothing was inexcusable then and now.

"sit back and do nothing" is a vast generalization... they did quite a lot, just not enough

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Spock

hmm, the airport wasn't working. troops aren't relief and how do you get to a city that's go no place to land.
just some thoughts, although I know none will score points.

You dont need airports to land helicopters in front of the super dome or amphibious vehicles. And troops would have been a huge huge relief to those places getting looted and those people getting shot at and raped. Stabilizing the situation first and foremost would go a long way to being able to get other things rolling without resistance.

[Rían]

The main thing I don't understand is why they didn't just drop in loads of bottled water. That seems like a very feasible thing to do, and it's certainly extremely critical.

[Ben]

see post below

[Rían]

Well, Ben, I think you can evaluate each different group - you seem to be pushing for Spock to say the overall relief efforts were either acceptable or not, and I don't understand why. It seems to me that you can evaluate different groups, given their unique responsibilities, information input, access to resources, etc.

Overall, it seems to me that the feds could have done better, esp. in two areas: Bush showing up there sooner, and somehow getting water in there. But also overall it seems that the local authorities could have done better in areas like repairing levees (maybe a special tax? after all, you can say it's someone else's fault, but if that someone else is not taking care of your issue, then it would be prudent to take care of it yourself instead of waiting for it to happen and then saying, "but it wasn't my fault!") and having more emergency plans.

[Ben]

A reasonable assessment, Rian. I also think that the federal government and the state and local governments made errors, as I'm detailing in a post I'm drafting now.

EDIT: On second thought, you may be right about intermediate questions. I'll cut to the chase and amend my question to Spock to what I really would like to know:

Spock, do you believe that President Bush and the federal government bear any blame for problems with the preparation, rescue, and relief efforts?

[Ben]

On September 8th, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a $51 billion aid package for victims of Hurricane Katrina. If you take a close look at the roll call, you'll notice the vote was not unanimous. Of those present, all the Democrats and the vast majority of Republicans, unsurprisingly, voted for the aid package. But 11 Republican congressmen somehow voted against the aid package.

I don't know what their rationale was, but I note that all of this band of 11 are ardent free-market, government-shrinking conservatives. These aren't just random congressmen, either - one is the head of the Judiciary Committee, and another is the head of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Now, everyone in the chamber must have known that the bill was going to pass. Yet these 11 conservatives decided to make a statement and vote against the aid package because ... ?

See what I mean about conservative economic ideology and natural disasters?

[Tree Dweller]

I think this thread has been completely spoiled for those of us who would like to discuss others things besides politics.

[Sister Golden Hair]

Originally Posted by bmilder

Spock, do you believe that President Bush and the federal government bear any blame for problems with the preparation, rescue, and relief efforts?

I would like to comment on this. I believe that there is plenty of blame to go around, but it starts at home. New Orleans, and Louisiana I think were overly confident that the storm would not have a catastrophic impact since they had escaped so many times in the past, not to mention, there have only been 3 or 4 catagory 5 hurricanes to ever hit the US, so preperation was not what it would have, should have, or could have been, had their past not spoke to them in their anticipation of Katrina.

I would like to post a letter that JD sent to CNN regarding their reports on the hurricane. I thought he made some good points.

I'm tired of all this Bush bashing over Katrina. Where the hell was the
responsibility of the Louisiana and New Orleans government. Some people
seem to have very little understanding of the way the government system
works in the US and by your one sided reporting - it just perpetuates the
problem. We are 50 SOVEREIGN states. It is NOT the federal government's
role to jump in right away or have all the evacuation plans mapped out for
ever city in the US. It's the local resposibility. Hell - the president
can't even send in troops without the EXPRESS request of the state
governor.

Why were the people who were put in the Super Dome sent there without food
and water? Why did Louisiana and New Orleans not think about how to get
the people out who had no means of their own? Now all we hear over and
over again is this race crap and that it's Bush's fault. Well New Orleans
has a balck mayor - who obviously is incompetent and is trying to protect
his ass so he's using the Federal government as a scape goat. Frankly I'm
sick of it. The New Orleans mayor is moron and definitely no Rudolph
Guiliani. If a Hurricane is making it's way to the NJ coast - I expect OUR
local towns and state to have the evacuation plans in place - NOT the
Federal Government.

The senators from Louisiana put on the tears and want to blame Bush - but
what preperation did their city and state do? I'll tell you what
preperation they did - ZERO! The blood of their citizens is ON THEIR
hands - not the FEDERAL government.

Robert Rosetta

Now, I don't want to hear complaints about JD and his abrasive self expressions. That's not the topic. I want to here what you think of what he says about the federal government vs the state and locals, and the effect the media has had on opinion of this disaster.

Frankly, we can finger point til the cows come home. That changes nothing, and what's done is done. There were mistakes made on all levels. We need to learn from it for future disasters to come.

[brownjenkins]

he's not completely offbase (though they did prepare, just not enough... categorizing it as ZERO is on topic criticism because it focuses too much on blame and too little on real solutions)

but to this comment...

It is NOT the federal government's
role to jump in right away or have all the evacuation plans mapped out for
ever city in the US.

i would say "why not?" ... the federal government does have the resources and ability to do such things, as evidenced by our relief efforts around the globe

let's put blame behind us for a moment and think about the future ... might it be a good idea for our federal government to be a backup for when local government's do fail to act? people mention cost, but the cost of cleanup is always much higher than the cost of prevention... and it is a cost the entire country bears, not just the state of louisiana

[Spock]

Originally Posted by bmilder

Spock, do you believe that President Bush and the federal government bear any blame for problems with the preparation, rescue, and relief efforts?

No matter what I believe, it will not change your opinions. I do not choose to plunge into useless dialogue although I at times find myself dipping into it.

[Insidious Rex]

Well you know I was all about scattering blame in a wide variety of levels but after reading Jerseys one sided tyrade I can see how this becomes simply an opportunity for extremists on both sides to use the event to try to score political points and not a rational focus on what really went wrong. He does realize doesnt he that EVEN Bush himself has admitted the FEDERAL government was seriously lacking in its response to this? And yet its all the fault of the Mayor of New Orleans?

[Ben]

Originally Posted by Spock

No matter what I believe, it will not change your opinions. I do not choose to plunge into useless dialogue although I at times find myself dipping into it.

We should just close General Messages then if the point of discussion is to change people's opinions. I'm asking you a simple, straightforward question. Both of us believe that local and state officials made errors and bear some blame for the response that you said was "inexcusable." However, some people may believe that the federal government made no inexcusable mistakes, or bears no blame. Are you one of these people?

Spock: keeping in mind that local and state officials all made errors, do you believe that President Bush and/or the federal government (including the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA) bear any blame - even the tiniest bit - for the problems with preparation, rescue, and relief?

I'm not seeking to change any opinions - I just want to know your opinion. That's not so hard, is it?

[Ben]

JD is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts. He provides zero substantiation about any of his claims about how disaster management is divided between state and federal government. I could spend an hour researching his claims to respond, but I've been burned enough in this thread. I can't respond until he provides some legitimate sources to back up his claims about federalism.

Look, we can all talk about how we wish FEMA and the locals would interact, but let's reference specific federal and state statutes and FEMA procedures when making matter-of-fact statements about how these groups operate.

It's also factually incorrect that local and state governments did "nothing," just as it's factually incorrect to say that the federal government did "nothing." Making a claim that is so easily proven to be a severe exaggeration obscures the rest of what he's trying to say.

I would ask JD what he thinks the purpose of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) is if the federal government has no business to "jump in right away" during emergencies. You can't wish away federal agencies.

Also, he comments that FEMA can't have plans for every city. True, but as I've proven earlier in this thread, FEMA specifically reported in 2001 that the hurricane hitting New Orleans was one of the three likeliest, most catastrophic dangers facing this country. A second of their predicted disasters actually came to pass (terrorist attack on New York), so one would expect a competent federal agency to get to work devising a plan for the other looming catastrophes, if they hadn't done so already.

It's actually false to say that FEMA didn't have a plan for New Orleans, because last year, the feds and state government conducted a drill called "Hurricane Pam," in which a catastrophic hurricane on New Orleans was simulated. The White House was briefed on this exercise.

[Rían]

As a small rabbit-trail comment, I would like to say that altho I don't think the sole purpose of GM discussions is to change people's opinions, my opinions have indeed changed in several areas as a result of some of the intelligent, considerate, logical, information-backed discussions that have taken place here, and me being willing to openmindedly consider the points made. They have NOT changed as a result of ANY of the (thankfully rare) rude and uninformed comments. And even if they don't change, the discussions are still good because I gain greater insight into other people's thoughts and feelings.

Back OT - one of the issues that makes me angry in cases like this is what I see as a hypocritical attitude from some of the people in the US when it comes to the federal government, especially. I've travelled on airplanes since 9/11, and compared to what it used to be, the pre-boarding time is just awful! Long lines, send your bags to get x-rayed, go in this line to be searched, go in this line to have your carry-ons searched, etc. etc. On our trip to Ecuador, my husband was unlucky enough to have one tiny little nail-clipper escape his notice, and we almost missed a connection because it took over 10 minutes to tear apart his whole carry-on and find the bugger. Yet I don't complain about it - I know that choices have consequences. We could choose to go back to the old, easier ways, but the consequence would be a far higher chance of more attacks.

In the same way, people complain about homeland security stuff, and loss of privacy stuff, yet God help whoever is in the government when the next attack comes - it's guaranteed that there will be complains about why don't we screen people better, etc. from the same people complaining about long waits at airports.

Ya can't have it both ways.

Living in California, I sure hope that our local governments learn from this in terms of food, water and medicine issues. Personally, we have our own supplies ready at our house, but we didn't for many years. It's so easy to think, "we can do it next week!"

Our local governments have taken some responsibility for our own unique problems here in Calif. by upping building codes. For new buildings, soil analysis takes place (soil type greatly affects how much "shake" is transmitted to the building, or how likely a large soil collapse/shift will be), and foundation requirements are assigned accordingly. Our house, which we bought new in 1997, has a special system of connecting rebar woven into the foundation. And when we added on, we had to pour our foundation to some ridiculous depth and tie into the rebar web on the existing house. So I think our local gov't is taking care of things to some extent, altho I have no idea about food/water/meds issues.

I think the most important point is that if someone is supposed to take care of you, but doesn't, then it's foolish to not do it yourself. It seems like the N.O. officials, who knew about possible levee failure, should have done more, no matter what (if anything) the feds should have done. And from the little I've heard from the N.O. mayor, it seems like he's trying to vilify others to take the spotlight off his own shortcomings in this area.

[Tessar]

To people in general (this is directed at more than one or two people):

If I see that anyone has made a post that does not further the debate, or is just a witty one-liner, I will remove it. Although I usually PM people when I remove their posts, or ask them to edit it themselves, I will not do that for this thread.

This is not simply for my own personal pleasure--I've had complaints that certain people are wrecking the debate, and I wont put up with it in as serious a topic as this.

You will have something important to say, or you will say nothing at all.

Thank you,

Tessar

[Sister Golden Hair]

The head of FEMA has now been replaced. He is not being replaced as FEMA head overall, but as head of the efforts in New Orleans. More later.