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-   -   Add geography to the growing list of FEMA fumbles. (https://blackandgold.com/saints/10025-add-geography-growing-list-fema-fumbles.html)

saintz08 09-07-2005 12:50 AM

Add geography to the growing list of FEMA fumbles.
 
Right city, wrong state
FEMA accused of flying evacuees to wrong Charleston

Tuesday, September 6, 2005

Add geography to the growing list of FEMA fumbles.

A South Carolina health official said his colleagues scrambled Tuesday when FEMA gave only a half-hour notice to prepare for the arrival of a plane carrying as many as 180 evacuees to Charleston.

But the plane, instead, landed in Charleston, West Virginia, 400 miles away.

It was not known whether arrangements have been made to care for the evacuees or transport them to the correct destination.

A call seeking comment from FEMA was not immediately returned.

"We called in all the available resources," said Dr. John Simkovich, director of public health for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.

"They responded within 30 minutes, which is phenomenal, to meet the needs of the citizens coming in from Louisiana," he said.

Simkovich said that the agency had described some of the evacuees as needing "some minor treatment ... possibly some major treatment."

"Unfortunately, the plane did not come in," Simkovich said. "There was a mistake in the system, coming out through FEMA, that we did not receive the aircraft this afternoon. It went to Charleston, West Virginia."

A line of buses and ambulances idled behind him at Charleston International Airport as he described what happened.

"This is a 'no event' for today," Simkovich said.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/06/kat...ion=cnn_latest

maximkat 09-07-2005 06:33 AM

just one more in the long line of FEMA screw ups. If you haven't seen this yet, I urge you to see it. It is Aaron Broussard being interviewed by Tim Russert on Meet the Press.

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/002348.html

Euphoria 09-07-2005 10:07 AM

This isn't good at all.

saintz08 09-07-2005 12:09 PM

Frustrated: Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA
By Lisa Rosetta
The Salt Lake Tribune

ATLANTA - Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?"
As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.
Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.
On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.

I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country," said FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak.
The firefighters - or at least the fire chiefs who assigned them to come to Atlanta - knew what the assignment would be, Hudak said.
"The initial call to action very specifically says we're looking for two-person fire teams to do community relations," she said. "So if there is a breakdown [in communication], it was likely in their own departments."
One fire chief from Texas agreed that the call was clear to work as community-relations officers. But he wonders why the 1,400 firefighters FEMA attracted to Atlanta aren't being put to better use. He also questioned why the U.S. Department of Homeland Security - of which FEMA is a part - has not responded better to the disaster.
The firefighters, several of whom are from Utah, were told to bring backpacks, sleeping bags, first-aid kits and Meals Ready to Eat. They were told to prepare for "austere conditions." Many of them
came with awkward fire gear and expected to wade in floodwaters, sift through rubble and save lives.
"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197

Euphoria 09-07-2005 12:13 PM

geez another great example of mismanagement. trainned professions to hand out fliers I love it.

saintz08 09-07-2005 05:44 PM

If you did not read the whole article you missed another good part to the story .

Quote:

But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.
They are good for fake publicity to cover some FEMA miscalculations ......

saintz08 09-07-2005 05:51 PM

FEMA accused of censorship

By Deborah Zabarenko

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When U.S. officials asked the media not to take pictures of those killed by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, they were censoring a key part of the disaster story, free speech watchdogs said on Wednesday.

The move by the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in line with the Bush administration's ban on images of flag-draped U.S. military coffins returning from the Iraq war, media monitors said in separate telephone interviews.

"It's impossible for me to imagine how you report a story whose subject is death without allowing the public to see images of the subject of the story," said Larry Siems of the PEN American Center, an authors' group that defends free expression.

U.S. newspapers, television outlets and Web sites have featured pictures of shrouded corpses and makeshift graves in New Orleans.

But on Tuesday, FEMA refused to take reporters and photographers along on boats seeking victims in flooded areas, saying they would take up valuable space need in the recovery effort and asked them not to take pictures of the dead.

In an e-mail explaining the decision, a FEMA spokeswoman wrote: "The recovery of victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect and we have requested that no photographs of the deceased by made by the media."

Efforts to recover bodies continued on Wednesday. Out in the city's filthy waters, rescue teams tied bodies to trees or fences when they found them and noted the location for later recovery before carrying on in search of survivors.

Rebecca Daugherty of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press found this stance inexplicable.

"The notion that, when there's very little information from FEMA, that they would even spend the time to be concerned about whether the reporting effort is up to its standards of taste is simply mind-boggling," Daugherty said. "You cannot report on the disaster and give the public a realistic idea of how horrible it is if you don't see that there are bodies as well."

http://reuters.myway.com/article/200...ORSHIP-DC.html

LordOfEntropy 09-07-2005 05:57 PM

I wonder how proud this would make Joseph Goebbels.

People NEED to know what happened down here. With ALL of its horror, with all of its poignance, with all of its mismanagement and needless death.

Otherwise, it will be easier to let it happen again.

saintz08 09-07-2005 06:07 PM

Quote:

Otherwise, it will be easier to let it happen again.
White House Enacts a Plan to Ease Political Damage

By ADAM NAGOURNEY and ANNE E. KORNBLUT

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4 - Under the command of President Bush's two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain the political damage from the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

It orchestrated visits by cabinet members to the region, leading up to an extraordinary return visit by Mr. Bush planned for Monday, directed administration officials not to respond to attacks from Democrats on the relief efforts, and sought to move the blame for the slow response to Louisiana state officials, according to Republicans familiar with the White House plan.

The effort is being directed by Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, and his communications director, Dan Bartlett. It began late last week after Congressional Republicans called White House officials to register alarm about what they saw as a feeble response by Mr. Bush to the hurricane, according to Republican Congressional aides.

As a result, Americans watching television coverage of the disaster this weekend began to see, amid the destruction and suffering, some of the most prominent members of the administration - Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense; and Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state - touring storm-damaged communities.

Mr. Bush is to return to Louisiana and Mississippi on Monday; his first visit, on Friday, left some Republicans cringing, in part because the president had little contact with residents left homeless.

Republicans said the administration's effort to stanch the damage had been helped by the fact that convoys of troops and supplies had begun to arrive by the time the administration officials turned up. All of those developments were covered closely on television.

In many ways, the unfolding public relations campaign reflects the style Mr. Rove has brought to the political campaigns he has run for Mr. Bush. For example, administration officials who went on television on Sunday were instructed to avoid getting drawn into exchanges about the problems of the past week, and to turn the discussion to what the government is doing now.

"We will have time to go back and do an after-action report, but the time right now is to look at what the enormous tasks ahead are," Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, said on "Meet the Press" on NBC.

One Republican with knowledge of the effort said that Mr. Rove had told administration officials not to respond to Democratic attacks on Mr. Bush's handling of the hurricane in the belief that the president was in a weak moment and that the administration should not appear to be seen now as being blatantly political. As with others in the party, this Republican would discuss the deliberations only on condition of anonymity because of keen White House sensitivity about how the administration and its strategy would be perceived.

In a reflection of what has long been a hallmark of Mr. Rove's tough political style, the administration is also working to shift the blame away from the White House and toward officials of New Orleans and Louisiana who, as it happens, are Democrats.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/na...gewanted=print

maximkat 09-07-2005 06:34 PM

Quote:

In a reflection of what has long been a hallmark of Mr. Rove's tough political style, the administration is also working to shift the blame away from the White House and toward officials of New Orleans and Louisiana who, as it happens, are Democrats.
What...a...shocker....







(can you detect my sarcasm?)

Euphoria 09-07-2005 06:55 PM

I don't know... if I had a loved one drowned, rotting body in sewage... I don't want to see my grandmother like that front page of the NY times.

saintz08 09-07-2005 09:35 PM

Coast Guard's Chief of Staff To Assist FEMA Head Brown

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 7, 2005

With Michael D. Brown, the embattled public face of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, taking harsh criticism for the slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the secretary of homeland security this week assigned a top Coast Guard official to help bail him out.

Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, the Coast Guard's chief of staff, was assigned on Monday to be Brown's deputy and to take over operational control of the search-and-rescue and recovery efforts along the Gulf Coast. The unprecedented task of coordinating the massive effort was handed off to a leader and expert who was described by colleagues as unflappable, engaging and intensely organized.

Allen is also familiar with the inner workings of the Department of Homeland Security, where the Coast Guard has landed alongside FEMA as one of the designated main protectors of the United States. Allen has been one of the primary shepherds of change at the Coast Guard since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and has been praised for his ability to reach out to other agencies to develop "big-picture" approaches to homeland defense.

Retired Adm. James M. Loy, former commandant of the Coast Guard and former deputy secretary of Homeland Security, said yesterday that Allen has the experience to help steer the federal response to the Katrina catastrophe in the right direction after early shortfalls. When Loy was the Coast Guard chief of staff from 1996 to 1998, Allen was his resource director, and Loy said he "always brings a new idea per minute to the table as far as how to grapple with difficult situations."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...v=rss_politics

Brown is in so far over his head , he would need a glass plate installed to replace the skin over his abdominal wall just to see anything .

saintz08 09-07-2005 09:47 PM

Quote:

I don't know... if I had a loved one drowned, rotting body in sewage... I don't want to see my grandmother like that front page of the NY times.
For most part , I would agree .....

But , what I would really hate to see is this scenario repeat itself in a few years because someone knew how to divert the attention of the people to some staged events made to bring joy joy happy thoughts .

saintz08 09-07-2005 10:39 PM

WASHINGTON - Some 200 New Orleans school buses sit underwater in a parking lot, unused. That's enough to have evacuated at least 13,000 people. Why weren’t those buses sent street by street to pick up people before the storm?

A draft emergency plan, prepared by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and obtained by NBC News, calls for "400 buses to ... evacuate victims." Yet those 200 buses were left in Katrina's path.

"That's a real tragedy that these resources weren't employed," said Greg Shaw, a disaster management expert at George Washington University," because it would have been good to get those people out of the city."

Tuesday, the mayor of New Orleans would not comment.

On the federal level, clearly the arrival of the military has helped. But why did it take so long?

Last Wednesday, an Army officer said the nation's elite rapid deployment group, the 82nd Airborne, had 3,500 soldiers and 30 helicopters ready to be in New Orleans within hours. Yet they arrived only on Labor Day.

Tuesday, the Pentagon was defensive.

"Not only was there no delay," said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers, "I think we anticipated in most cases — not in all cases, but in most cases — the support that was required. And we were pushing support before we were formally asked for it."

A persistent unanswered question is, why didn’t the military just drop pallets of water to those stranded in various locations?

"This was an inexcusable failure of the government," said Gunnar J. Kuepper with the International Association of Emergency Managers.

One huge bottleneck in the evacuation — the New Orleans airport. Officials say flights were delayed while screeners and air marshals were flown in to comply with post-9/11 security requirements, and then further delayed because screening machines weren’t working. Finally, someone at Homeland Security signed an order to allow evacuees to be screened by hand.

So far, there are many more questions than official answers about the delays and failures on the state, local and federal levels that, critics say, made this catastrophe even worse.


http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9231926/

LordOfEntropy 09-08-2005 12:07 AM

It's sickening. I don't know who deserves the blame for it, or who does not. I really don't know. At this point, I almost really don't even care anymore.

All I know that people died, and the police and national guard and regular troops were not there when we needed them the most. So more people died than had to.


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