Re: Scum attack Bush since the hurricane
- From: "cliff84373@xxxxxxxxxxx" <cliff84373@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 21 Sep 2005 23:25:33 -0700
> They're predictable, and disgusting to those of us who
> are better.
> Hopefully some of the worst of their scummy statements and
> behavior will become political advertising in the 2006 and 2008
> elections.
The Pugs political strategy is always to either blame their screw-ups
on someone else or try to impune the messenger. As I recall, Nixon used
to actually have an enemies list.
Anyway you can add the Wall Street Journal to your enemies list:
Plan proves to be prophetic
By ROBERT BLOCK, The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON -- A government-funded crisis exercise last year produced a
strategy to prepare for and respond to a Katrina-like hurricane in New
Orleans, but state, local and federal officials were still finalizing
the plan when just such a storm hit.
Warning that tens of thousands of stranded individuals would have to be
evacuated by bus and airlift, the plan's 200-page preliminary
recommendations were distributed Jan. 5 to state emergency planners and
officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Army Corps of
Engineers, Coast Guard and other agencies, according to the contractor
that drafted the document. Dozens more copies, including 200 updated
pages and annexes, were requested by federal officials in the days and
hours before Katrina made landfall Aug. 29.
A copy of the 448-page "Southeast Louisiana Catastrophic Hurricane
Plan," which hasn't been made public, warned that "a substantial
portion" of city residents wouldn't be able to evacuate, and that "a
major limiting factor in executing this plan would be the shortage of
transportation facilities." The document added that because of lack of
transport, "delivery of water and possibly food to victims...will be
crucial to minimize deaths." Previous drafts of the document, but not
the comprehensive version, have been cited earlier in news reports.
Louisiana began requesting buses from the federal government only the
day after storm waters breached New Orleans's levees, stranding the
predicted thousands. It took FEMA four days to get an adequate number
of buses.
The response left thousands of people in overcrowded and often
dangerous shelters such as the New Orleans Convention Center without
food and water. Flaws in communications and coordination among
government agencies at the federal, state and local level complicated
relief efforts.
Some federal officials have blamed state and local governments for the
response, but the plan noted: "The response capabilities and resources
of the local jurisdiction...may be insufficient and quickly
overwhelmed." It also endorsed actions later taken by New Orleans Mayor
Ray Nagin--for which he was criticized--such as instructing people to
go to their rooftops or high ground to wait for rescue. Military and
other rescue helicopters, however, were slow to be deployed.
The contractor hired by FEMA to draft the plans said that while they
were neither complete nor perfect, they could have been used as a rough
guide to coordinate the response among all levels of government. "In a
sense, this was Version 1.0 of an action plan," said Madhu Beriwal,
president and chief executive of IEM Inc., the Baton Rouge, La.,
consulting firm that FEMA hired in May 2004 to draw up the disaster
strategy for New Orleans.
The mock disaster exercise, designed and run by IEM, envisioned a
hypothetical slow-moving Category 3 hurricane named Pam causing 10 to
12 feet of flooding in New Orleans and the entire metropolitan area on
the east bank of the Mississippi River. Katrina's floodwaters spared
most of neighboring Jefferson Parish and parts of New Orleans.
FEMA spokesman Butch Kinerney confirmed that copies of the document
were circulating at the agency's National Response Coordination Center
in Washington, but he said it didn't guide federal efforts because "it
was not designed to be the response bible for a major event...and has
not supplanted existing local, state, federal and nongovernment
emergency plans."
But Walter Maestri, director of emergency preparation for Jefferson
Parish, west of New Orleans, said his parish followed the "Pam plan,"
before and after Katrina hit. Most people in Jefferson Parish evacuated
and those who didn't had food and water for the first couple of days,
officials said.
"We certainly fulfilled the roles that were given to us at the local
level," Mr. Maestri said. "In essence, we waited for the cavalry to
arrive. It didn't arrive."
He said he was shocked when federal officials said they were surprised
by the damage Katrina wrought. "What's laid out in 'Pam' is exactly
what happened in Katrina," he said.
After the first installment of the preliminary plan came out in
January, federal, state and local officials held workshops to revise
it. The proposed revisions had been circulated among all the pivotal
players by the time Katrina hit.
The January document covered some immediate post-disaster response
needs identified by the state, including 14 subjects that emergency
managers should address during and after a catastrophic storm in New
Orleans. They vary from where to billet emergency responders to issues
such as search and rescue operations, medical treatment, and housing
for displaced people. Other areas such as security, communications,
missing persons and family reunification as well as rebuilding and
recovery were supposed to be hashed out in later sessions.
Ms. Beriwal said four Florida hurricanes in August 2004 delayed
follow-up workshops. IEM then planned one workshop a month starting in
January to have a plan in place for the beginning of this year's
hurricane season in June.
But the workshops were delayed by a funding shortfall at FEMA, Ms.
Beriwal said. The total contract awarded to IEM was $800,000. When the
final $300,000 came through in June, she said, workshops were held in
July and August. Since Katrina, Ms. Beriwal's firm was hired by FEMA to
prepare a report on the hurricane response. The value of that contract
hasn't been made public.
Michael Brown, the FEMA chief who resigned last week under criticism
for the Katrina response, previously criticized the Department of
Homeland Security, of which FEMA is a part, for taking unobligated
funds from the agency, weakening its ability to do such things as
catastrophe planning.
Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke denied yesterday that there was
any significant funding shortfall that would have hindered IEM from
completing its project. "The problem was that Mother Nature trumped the
playbook," he said.
.
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- From: Dave Simpson
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