saintz08

I have to wonder , how much money and time was spent on running disaster scenarios , taking trips to the areas and working out plans , so that when Katrina made landfall FEMA could do nothing when help was needed .

Euphoria

People were probably collecting pay checks as a member of such and such response team or board member ect ect... and they did nothing just a title and paycheck.

I guess politics in Louisiana is actually going to mean something for a change.

Euphoria

Hey anyone hearing or seeing any of the problems with fema, mayor, and governor... post the stories here as well so everyone can be informed on what is going on and the faults... the fireman handing out fliers is a great example of mismanagement.

saintz08

Heard this morning and yes most likely a rumor .

Move on is moving into position at the Capital .

From Move on :

In the immediate days after Katrina, we saw the best of America as millions of people stepped forward to offer help. Meanwhile, the Bush administration failed at their most important job: keeping America safe. The federal effort was too little, too late and the fact that the White House would blame state and local officials after they had begged for help is appalling.

For those interested , the petition .

http://political.moveon.org/helpvictims/

lynwood

Yeah Blame the govt when people can't make the right decision and the local govt. can't inact it's evacuation policy and you don't see the govna except to do a photo op with the president. Go on Move-on keep making me vote republican. Oh yeah, Thanks Howard Dean for also saying that Race was a factor. Must be nice to be able to sit back and make excuses and point the finger.

Euphoria

I love it that people don't realize there are white people in New Orleans. Asians other nationalities sure majority black but come on. its a Baton Rouge - New Orleans things once people realize that they will see the problem. Mayor wants mandatory evac and gove says no... ECOLI - HELLO... freakin governor

maximkat

These are my favorite kind of people. Yes, blame the goverment, Why? Because they had ample opportunity to do something about it before the hurricane got here! Sure the hurricane looked like it would be much less until what, about 2 am the morning it hit when it picked up a lot of speed, and sure people could have got out of there much easier (if they had the money to). But the fact IS, and still remains, regardless of how bad or not so bad the hurricane looked like it could be, that FEMA should have been ready. They clearly were not.

Here is a trivia question for you. What was the job Mike Brown held before he was crowned head of FEMA?


Answer: Commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders' and horse-show organization based in Colorado.

I can see how much these two positions relate to each other. The goverment as a whole should be disappointed to have overlooked something so ridiculously stupid.

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. -- Kahlil Gibran

BrooksMustGo

Now that there's a wave of finger-pointing going on, I have a question or two.

1. Should we also be pointing fingers at local and state people in Mississippi? They went nearly a week with no sign of federal help too. If msnbc crews can make it to Pass Christian by Wednesday, why can't Mississippi or FEMA? Mississippi had Camille hit in 69, shouldn't they have had a better plan too? Even assuming that state and local people royally fouled up in Louisiana, does that explain why Mississippi didn't get help either?

2. Does Louisiana own relief ships? I thought that Euph's post that started this thread was a great observation. If New Orleans is one of the busiest ports in north america, why didn't anyone start parking ships in the river? If the state of Louisiana has hospital ships, cruise ships or aircraft carrying ships, then Blanco should be run out of the state for not having them parked at New Orleans within a day or 2 of the storm coming through.

3. Where does the buck stop? There has been this huge debate for days now about who gets the buck. Who is ultimately responsible for homeland security? Leadership is hard, but it seems like leadership has a lot to do with picking up other people's mistakes. Truman springs to mind here.

Just askin...

yasoon

Yes, you're correct. That is all the feds have done for over a week now.
I agree that there is blame to go around on a local level. However, one of the key functions of intervention by the feds is protecting and assisting the people during times of unprecedented need. I think the most brutal natural disaster in our country's history qualifies.

They told us that they have worked and created agencies to handle homeland security. That we need to be lighter and more capable of fast response. Truly, this is worse than a terrorist attack because it was a scenario that many people knew was a distinct possibility. The state nor the city have the means to handle anything of this scope. This is when we rely on the federal government. Did NY (one of the richest,most populous, and most powerful states) carry the burden of 9/11 alone? Absolutely not. So how can anyone say that Homleland Security doesn't have an implicit level of responsibility in the wake of Katrina?

Take a look at Brown's resume and consider the job that FEMA has. He has no disaster recovery experience. He got released from his post at the Arabian Horse Society or whatever. So, there's a guy you want to take control of disasters. These are what I like to call FACTS and they are out there for public consumption. There is a time and place for hooking up your cronies....it happens in every administration. But, send this clown as the ambassador to Sri Lanka or something more suitable to his limited skillset. He has no business holding this post and if he's not relieved of his duties, it is an outrage.

You wanna talk about excuses? Bush actually said that no one thought the levees would break. That is categorically false. The depiction of this exact scenario has been talked about for years. It's all crap. There are no more facts, you can just say whatever you want. Brown said he didn't know that anyone was in the convention center. BS. But people continue to give these guys a pass when they talk out of their asses.

We need qualified people in place that can handle things like this. Most weather experts agree that there are many more rough hurricane seasons ahead. I would say that we have learned nothing about coordinating efforts for the protection of Americans. We are at war with terror. What have we shown them? That we are vulnerable and that we can't get out of our own freaking way.

Every time anything comes up where the administration can be blamed, the excuses pile up like houses in Biloxi. The governement should have been ready to mobilize, to assist, to treat, to feed, and to evacuate. I'm no socialist and I realize that there are those elements of society with their hand out.....it's a tough line to draw. But....you need to be there.

I went to Pascagoula last Weds to take food and water and to help friends clear houses. I was there for 2 days. The Guard started showing up on Friday. FEMA has yet to show. The situation was nowhere nearly as dire there, but it was certainly ugly. There is a certain time period where you have to enforce order or things get even worse. We missed that time in New Orleans and lives were lost. (You could very well parallel it to the chaos over seas.)

To the people who don't look at the way things are going at a national level and scratch their heads.....I don't know what to say. It's all right there in front of you and you choose to ignore it. FEMA has been crippled by this administration and their ability to function has been seriously impacted. There are people on both the right and the left who know this. (I'm in the middle.) So, if you choose to ignore that our ability to respond to catastrophic events in an age where your government lives on a premise of protecting the people from terror.......you are not listening. The ability to do these things should be better by proxy with the creation of the Dept. of Homeland Security. The fact is....it is not, and that is a failure by our government to deliver on their much touted ability to protect the good of our people.

lynwood

Hey, I'm not giving FEMA an free pass but i'm wondering why march on the capital alone. They want to blame just one agency or one person or just one government. if that's the case then the federal government should just take over the local and state governments since anything that goes wrong they will automatically get the blame.

And from what I hear the Fed's (FEMA) need permission from the state to send in help,troops, whatever..Blanco took 24 hours to think about it.

And no matter what the local and the state must provide the first line of defense or aid.

Now what doesn't help anyone is to make it a Black against white thing(Dean)or to focus on just one agency or just the president. That shows an agenda against an administration, which is why move-on's march and deans comments are gonna do nothing to help fix things and is also the mantra of their party which is complain and point fingers but don't come up with any solutions.

As far as i've seen the only people that have been pointing fingers are the left anti-bush group. Yes Brown needs to be fired but if you just focus on one person in this or administration you are not doing justice to the situation.