Tag: Hurricane Katrina

Remarkable restraint: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had broad powers to circumvent state authorities in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina’s landfall on the Gulf Coast. Question is, why didn’t he exercise them?

According to Chris Strohm, writing for GoveExec.com, DHS could have bypassed state and local authorities to stage material and relief supplies in the critical days leading up to the storm.

The federal government has been criticized during the past week for being slow to respond to the hurricane’s impact, especially with regard to the situation in New Orleans, where levees broke on Tuesday, flooding the city, killing thousands and leaving tens of thousands stranded for days with no food, water or medical care.

Homeland Security officials have said in their defense that they pre-positioned resources before the hurricane struck, but had to wait for the states to request federal assistance before they could fully move into the affected regions.

During an interview on CBS’ Face the Nation last Sunday, Chertoff offered up another in what is becoming a long list of ultra-banal quotes:

“I think that the lesson of this hurricane, which we will clearly look at as we go over an after-action evaluation, is going to be very valuable moving forward. This was an ultracatastrophe, but we have to be prepared even for ultracatastrophes, even things that happen once in a lifetime, or once in a generation.”

The government’s National Response Plan gives DHS broad authority to respond to catastrophes, even if it means bypassing state and local governments. What isn’t clear is whether Chertoff fully used that power.
[…]

Gops awaken: Most polls taken since the Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Gulf Coast show that public approval of President Bush is declining. What is causing the decline?

Andy Kohut, director of the Pew poll says, “Uncharacteristically, the president’s ratings have slipped most among his core constituents — Republicans and conservatives.”

In the Pew survey, Republicans gave President Bush a job approval rating of 79 percent – down from 88 percent in July. Among Democrats, his approval was 19 percent compared with 18 percent in July, and among independents it was 33 percent versus 32 percent.

In the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has stepped up to the plate. First she revealed tht President Bush had indicated to her personally that he was clueless (or lying to her face) about the ineptitude of his unqualified FEMA Director Michael Brown.

Today in an interview on CNN, she went toe to toe with newsreader Kyra Phillips who seemed to be sitting in for White House political director:

PHILLIPS: I think it’s unfair that FEMA is just singled out. There are so many people responsible for what has happened in the state of Louisiana.

PELOSI: Well, that’s true. That is true. And I’m sorry that you think it’s unfair. But I don’t. I think it’s unfair to the people who lost their family members, their lives, their livelihoods, their homes, their opportunity.

And FEMA has done a poor job. It had no chance. It was (INAUDIBLE)…

PHILLIPS: But what about all those warnings…

PELOSI: … may I please respond?

PHILLIPS: What about all the warnings from the Army Corps of Engineers…

PELOSI: But the Army Corps of Engineers…

PHILLIPS: … years ago, saying there’s a problem with these levees, there’s a problem with this city…

PELOSI: … if you want to make a case for the White House, you should go on their payroll.

Crooks & Lias has the video.

FEMA still hasn’t figured out to make nice with the folks it’s supposedly trying to help. As UPS, the shipping giant, tries to aid in Gulf Coast relief, it sounds as if FEMA still isn’t talking to the governors. UPS:

UPS today announced it had begun working directly with the governors of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to support the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

In Louisiana, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco has organized a team to help direct the state’s emergency relief effort. UPS is supporting the distribution and logistics efforts of that team.

In consultation with Gov. Blanco and also with Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, UPS has placed individual liaison officers at the command of the state governments. Two hurricane relief officers have been assigned to each of the two states, one to the governor and a second to the top Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) official in the state. These UPS managers will remain accessible at all time to ensure that any emergency movement of food or supplies is handled as promptly as possible.

Can you say, “duplication?” Very good! Now can you say, “FEMA incompetence?” I thought you could!

As the federal government struggles to accomplish anything beyond roughing people up and justifying its poor performance, at least UPS is “gittin’ ‘er done.”

Over the past 10 days, UPS has transported more than 4 million pounds of relief supplies for federal, state and private relief organizations responding to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The effort, with starting points ranging from California to Vermont, has involved both air and ground movements and focused primarily on the transportation of water, medicine, baby formula, non-perishable food items, emergency supplies and paper goods.

Beyond those items, UPS also has moved a mobile kitchen for the U.S. Park Police; a mobile hospital from Reno, Nev., to New Orleans, and child-sized cots from California to Dallas. The company now is arranging the move of a mobile water treatment system from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Gulfport, Miss.

Someone in Mississippi spoke for the entire nation:

Vice President Dick Cheney, in Gulfport, Mississippi on a tour of the Katrina hurricane zone, was told to “go fuck yourself” twice on live television, RAW STORY has learned.

During a discussion on hurricane relief efforts, an off camera protester shouts, “Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney. Go fuck yourself.”

The camera remains on Cheney while we hear scuffling in the background. Cheney continues speaking.

CNN’s reporter asks Cheney, “Are you getting a lot of that Mr. Vice President?”

Cheney replies, “First time I’ve heard it., Must be a friend of John…, er, ah – never mind.”

Laughter ensues from the VP and reporters. Directly aftward, Cheney continues an ongoing monologue on what to do about hurricane debris: “But it’s a question about what you do with the debris in terms of your toxic waste problem you’ve got to worry about in terms of where you’re going to put it…”

The exchange was carried live on CNN and MSNBC.

Crooks & Liars has the video. You definitely want to see this.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Sept. 6-7 among 1,000 Americans, found a huge racial divide in perceptions of the disaster and lessons to be learned from Katrina’s aftermath.

For example, 71% of blacks say the disaster shows that racial inequality remains a major problem in the country; a majority of whites (56%) feel this was not a particularly important lesson of the disaster. And while 66% of blacks think that the government’s response to the crisis would have been faster if most of the storm’s victims had been white, an even larger percentage of whites (77%) disagree.

The American public is highly critical of President Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Two-in-three Americans (67%) believe he could have done more to speed up relief efforts, while just 28% think he did all he could to get them going quickly. At the same time, Bush’s overall job approval rating has slipped to 40% and his disapproval rating has climbed to 52%, among the highest for his presidency. Uncharacteristically, the president’s ratings have slipped most among his core constituents – Republicans and conservatives.

The disaster has triggered a major shift in public priorities. For the first time since the 9/11 terror attacks, a majority of American say it is more important for the president to focus on domestic policy than the war on terrorism. And the poll finds that Katrina has had a profound psychological impact on the public. Americans are depressed, angry and very worried about the economic consequences of the disaster. Fully 58% of respondents say they have felt depressed because of what’s happened in areas affected by the storm. In recent years, this percentage is only surpassed by the 71% that reported feeling depressed in a survey taken just days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The survey finds that while the hurricane has drawn broad public attention, spiraling gas prices have attracted as much interest as reports on the storm’s impact. Roughly seven-in-ten are paying close attention to each story (71% gas prices, 70% hurricane’s impact). That represents the highest level of interest in gas prices in the two decades of Pew’s News Interest Index.

Downward Trends: A new CBS News poll conducted Tuesday and Wednesday found that 52% of respondents disapproved of George Bush’s overall job performance as president. Of course, 81% of Repugs approved while 80% of Dems didn’t, but most telling was that 55% of independents thought Bush’s handling of the most powerful office in the world was sub-par.

To the question of how much confidence they have in Bush’s ability to handle a crisis, 32% said “a lot,” versus 66% for Repugs, while 39% of Dems and 24% of indies had “none at all.”

When asked how much confidence they have in the U.S. government to protect citizens from terrorist attacks, 30% of all respondents said “not very much,” only a third of Republicans expressed “a great deal” of confidence; 39% of Democrats and 31% of independents said “not very much.”

Asked the same confidence question about the government’s ability to respond effectively to natural disasters, just over a third of respondents said “not very much,” only a third of Repugs expressed “a great deal” of confidence, 24% of Dems and 17% of indies said “none at all.”

On whether they approve or disapprove of the way Bush handled Hurricane Katrina, 58% of all respondents and 57% of independents expressed disapproval. Just over two-thirds of Repugs approved, while 86% of Dems disapproved.

Regarding Katrina, 69%of respondents said federal officials did a poor job of preparing before the storm and 70% said state and local officials didn’t prepare well, either. More than three-quarters of those surveyed said the feds could have done “much better” in the days following the storm and 80% said the government could have moved faster. Both Louisiana state and local officials and FEMA could have moved faster in the wake of the storm, according to 70% of respondents.

Nearly half of respondents thought reductions in goverment spending were a “major factor” in the severity of flooding in New Orleans. Regarding whether the speed of the government’s response was affected by the fact that most people left behind in New Orleans after the storm were black and poor, less than a third said it was a “major factor” and half said it wasn’t a factor at all.

When asked about the alacrity of Bush’s response to the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, 1% (all Republicans) said he responded too quickly, two-thirds said “too slow” and less than a third said his speed was “about right.”

Florida’s junior senator, Republican Mel Martinez, has shown the first tentative signs of growing a spine. Scientists caution it’s too early to say for sure, but the Cuban-American politico, famous for handing off both strategy and blame to his staff, is looking…firmish and principley.

Martinez said he welcomes help for Katrina victims from Cuban doctors, as offered by Fidel Castro last week. Miami Herald:

Castro’s offer has put the administration in a tight spot. Refusal could be perceived as placing politics before the needs of victims…

“But if we need doctors, and Cuba offers them and they provide good service, of course we should accept them,” he said in his Washington office. “And we’re grateful for that offer.”

Oh, we need doctors. Despite FEMA claiming we don’t and turning them away at the gates, a medical team from Florida made it in to Waveland, Miss. earlier this week. People ran to the ambulance and beat on its doors before it came to a stop in a shopping center parking lot, wheeling loved ones unable to walk in shopping carts. The sick and injured told the medicos they were the first doctors and nurses they had seen since the hurricane hit, with one person already dying from lack of dialysis.

So we need all the help we can get, but someone should first check and see whether the earth shifted on its axis if Martinez said we are grateful to communist Cuba. Anyone not familiar with the bitterness found among some in the Cuban community toward Castro can’t appreciate the daredevil Mel is turning out to be.

Martinez recalled how Cuba rejected a U.S. offer to send $50,000 when the island was ravaged by Hurricane Dennis in July. “I regretted that,” he said. […]