Tag: Hurricane Katrina

Jeb Bush wrote an entire guest editorial in the Washington Post last month, just to drive home the point that Hurricane Katrina mistakes were 100% the fault of state and local governments, not his brother’s. After all, he said, we know how to handle this stuff in Florida.

Just as all politics are local, so are all disasters. The most effective response is one that starts at the local level and grows with the support of surrounding communities, the state and then the federal government…

“It’s been chaos,” said store manager Luis Gonzalez… “Where is FEMA?” said Yamara Higgins of Deerfield Beach

Florida’s emergency response system…is second to none…Once a storm is forecast for landfall in Florida, all these groups put their disaster response-and-recovery plans into high gear…

But with proper preparation and planning, it is possible — as we in Florida have proved — to restore order, quickly alleviate the suffering of those affected and get on the road to recovery.

Wow. Sounds great. But how’s all that “leave the Feds out of it and let us handle it” stuff working for you now, Jeb? Here’s the scene in South Florida, where Pensito Review’s man in Miami, Buck, is still unaccounted for. South Florida Sun Sentinel:

Although state officials had bragged about their readiness for Wilma, trucks with water and ice didn’t start arriving in Broward County until late Tuesday. Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade County centers also reported problems. As a result, tensions ran high and some fights broke out as residents complained help was not coming quickly enough…

Florida Power & Light Co. said it had restored service to almost a half-million people statewide, but more than 2.8 million remained without electricity Tuesday, including 98 percent of Broward. Officials are still estimating it could take weeks to get the area up and running.

So 98% of Broward County (i.e, Fort Lauderdale) is without power? That’s like all of it. Still, Jeb was prepared so I know things aren’t too bad.

Across the region, people went into scavenger mode, descending on those few sources of water, food and gas they could find. Most ignored pleas from government officials to stay off roads, still full of debris and without working traffic lights. As a result, traffic added to clogged conditions…

Sheriff Ken Jenne said he expects to ask for the National Guard in the next two or three days because of the workload on deputies…

Curfews remained in effect, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Broward and from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. in Miami-Dade.

Customers also mobbed a Publix [grocery store] in Sunrise that opened at 8 a.m., snatching up 250 cases of water in one hour.

“It’s been chaos,” said store manager Luis Gonzalez.

[…]

Heck of a job: The bad rap FEMA has taken over it’s abysmal response to Hurricane Rita must be galling to the thousands of good guys and gals at the relief agency – especially the professionals who were in the disaster region after the storm, trying to do their jobs.

One such FEMA pro is Marty Bahamonde. After the levees broke in New Orleans, Bahamonde was holed up in the Superdome with 30,000 evacuees, no plumbing or power, and very little food and water.

He was tasked with serving as the eyes and ears of FEMA’s then-director, Michael Brown. But now Bahamonde has come forward to say that Brown ignored his dire pleas for help – and appeared to be more concerned about having a relaxing dinner in a Baton Rouge restaurant than he was about citizens under his protection in New Orleans who were dying in attics and living in filth with no help in sight.

From “Countdown” with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC:

[…]

How now, Brown scapegoat? Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff testified yesterday before the House Select Committe on Katrina, and ex-FEMA chief Michael Brown came out the worse for it. If that’s possible.

Committee members were were much less critical and argumentative in questioning Chertoff than when former FEMA Director Michael Brown appeared before them Sept. 27.

Chertoff defended the government’s emergency response: “I don’t think it was a lack of a sense of urgency or complacency,” he said. “If there was a lack, it may have been in some better planning that should have been done in terms of our general capability for dealing with catastrophes.”

Chertoff said he and President Bush “were deeply and personally engaged” both before and after the hurricane hit.

Chertoff acknowledged problems with the immediate response, but laid it at Brown’s feet, noting that Brown was the government’s “battlefield commander on the ground” in charge of preparation and response to Katrina.
[…]

How can George Bush show he really does care about black people?

Replace Dickface Cheney with the woman he consults before he takes a whiz: Dr. Secretary of State Condo Rice.

With rumors mushrooming about Cheney’s prospects in the CIA leak investigation, and Bush’s approval ratings in the Little President’s Room, the one thing that could really put Bush ahead for 2008 (?) is appointing the first black female V.P.

These guys would love it:

“We have watched and listened over the last several weeks with a great deal of frustration and dismay while political opportunists and race-baiting black leaders and Democratic politicians took advantage of the tragedy and suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, particularly in New Orleans, to engage in political opportunism and playing the race card,” [Coalition of South Florida African and Caribbean American Republican Party spokesperson Levi] Williams said, reading from a four-page statement.

“Equally disturbing is that many have used this tragedy to fabricate and distort the truth on the president’s commitment to poor Americans,” Williams said.

Of course, they’d love him no matter what, even if he made Condo use a different Little Secretary of State’s Room than Laura and Jenna and Barbara.

Deja vu: After having botched their response to Hurricane Katrina, it’s shocking that Team Bush appears to be dropping the ball again in New Orleans. And yet, despite his near-weekly trips to the soggy ruins of the Big Easy, the President has no actionable plans for the rebuilding of the city.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Administration’s mañana attitude is causing alarm among local government officials and returning evacuees. It has gotten so bad that that even Republicans are complaining:

[A] variety of prominent Republicans warn that the president’s approach is a recipe for trouble.

“So far, all we’ve done is shovel money out the door to meet the humanitarian needs,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). “But henceforth, we’ve got to be very careful how we spend the money, and that means we’re going to need a plan and somebody in charge.”

A former Cabinet member had similar concerns.

“With all due respect to the president, things are not going to bubble up from the bottom,” said Jack Kemp, who was Housing and Urban Development secretary under President George H.W. Bush. “There has to be some federal leadership here.”

And then there is this ominous portent:

“The White House has studiously avoided making any choices about what should be rebuilt, and the corps has taken that to mean rebuild everything,” said David R. Conrad, a senior water resources specialist with the National Wildlife Federation and a veteran corps watcher.

If the pressure he is under is impairing President Bush’s ability to govern, he must put the interests of the country above his own and resign.

Florida Times-Union:

Suppose a substantial amount of your tax money goes to a government agency that writes checks to all kinds of people following a disaster. And suppose the agency issues no-bid contracts, is accused of cronyism, and has demonstrated incompetence in spending — thereby wasting — your tax money…

A federal judge in Fort Myers will decide whether newspapers can see the names and addresses of the people who received nearly $5.3 billion in after-storm payments [from 2004]. Seeking to learn if the payments were fair and equitable, The News-Press in Fort Myers, the Pensacola News Journal and Florida Today, all owned by Gannett Inc., sued after FEMA refused to release the records.

Most larger newspapers, including the Times-Union, spend a lot of money each year on legal fees to ensure openness of government and openness of public records. Usually they seek information that any taxpayer should be able to obtain easily…

Why would competent administrators not want us to know how tax money is being spent?

…There are consequences to not knowing what’s in FEMA’s files. Excessive costs and wasted tax money are examples. There are others.

Perhaps if the secrecy had been lifted a year ago, allowing the media and others to watchdog more carefully in 2004, a few outcomes would have been different in 2005.

Perhaps if the crazy way FEMA doles out money had been uncovered sooner, we could have avoided wasting some of the many millions wasted after Katrina.

Perhaps if a firestorm of scrutiny had focused on FEMA earlier, a more effective agency with stronger leadership could have been in place to enable FEMA to respond more effectively and thereby reduce the misery or even save lives.

No one knows what might have happened, of course, but this explains why newspapers are suing FEMA. Taxpayers should be able to see the books.

If you missed this Borowitz Report, read it now:

In a televised speech to the nation last night, President George W. Bush praised the Federal government for responding swiftly to Hurricane Rita with well-crafted, high-quality photo opportunities showing him looking concerned, but said that the government needs to create the impression of concern even faster in the future.

Mr. Bush said the fact that the government provided the first images of him looking grave and engaged in the crisis even before Hurricane Rita slammed into the Texas and Louisiana coastline showed that it had learned the lessons of Hurricane Katrina.

“After Hurricane Katrina, it was hours before the American people saw the first photos of me furrowing my brow and looking serious,” Mr. Bush said. “But with Rita, we had high-quality images of me looking worried right from the get-go.”

While praising the swiftness of the government’s photo-op response to Rita, the president said that “much work still needs to be done” to ensure that the government will produce high-quality post-disaster photo-ops even faster in the future.

To that end, he said he was creating a new government bureaucracy, the Federal Emergency Image Management Agency, which would provide the president with lighting, cameras, and dramatic backdrops within minutes of any national emergency.

“In times of crisis, the president needs to send the American people the following message,” the president concluded. “Message: I look like I care.”

If you happened to see ‘Meet the Press’ last week, you saw the moderator, Tim Russert, challenge Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard about the facts of a very emotional story that Broussard recounted on MTP soon after the Katrina disaster. Apparently, as he tearfully told the story of the elderly mother of one of his employees waiting for help in her nursing home, Broussard misstated certain aspects of the timeline.

But Broussard stood up under the would-be withering attack that Russert reserves especially for Democrats. Broussard pushed back:

“Listen, sir, somebody wants to nitpick a man’s tragic loss of a mother because she was abandoned in a nursing home. Are you kidding? What kind of sick mind, what kind of black-hearted people want to nitpick a man’s mother’s death? They just buried Eva last week. I was there at the wake. Are you kidding me? That wasn’t a box of Cheerios they buried last week.”

Because of this courageous challenged to the supine, calcified MSM establishment, Buzzflash has named Broussard as the recipient of its Wings of Jusice award.

“Mike Brown testified today, under oath, that I did not include Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquemines parishes in my original disaster declaration request sent to the President on August 28. In fact, that request did include 14 parishes in southeast Louisiana, including Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquemines.

“Mr. Brown further suggested that I did not order an evacuation of New Orleans until Sunday, Aug. 28. In fact, the evacuation was ordered on the morning of Saturday, August 27. Within 48 hours, 1.3 million citizens – representing more than 90 percent of the region — were safely evacuated in the state´s extraordinarily effective evacuation plan that included early use of contraflow on the interstate system.

“Such falsehoods and misleading statements, made under oath before Congress, are shocking. It clearly demonstrates the appalling degree to which Mr. Brown is either out of touch with the truth or reality.

“Today´s hearing only supports the need for a thorough, non-partisan investigation of this event.”

— Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco