Here is a verified mistake by FEMA, and at this point, these types of cock-ups are inexcusable:
Five West Virginia Air National Guard C-130 transport aircraft sent to pick up displaced victims from Hurricane Katrina returned home empty early Wednesday, following a series of frustrating bureaucratic snafus.
“We met with obstacles everywhere we turned,” said Lara Ramsburg, communications director for Gov. Joe Manchin. “It’s been a frustrating experience.”
“To bring five planes back empty is a crying shame,” Manchin told The Associated Press.
Ramsburg said Manchin and state emergency services personnel worked with federal officials and their counterparts in states affected by the hurricane throughout the night on Sept. 1 before sending the C-130s southward.“We weren’t going to let the planes leave here without being certain everything was in order,” she said. “But as soon as they landed in Louisiana there was chaos, and things just got more confusing. We had five aircraft on the ground Tuesday that could have been used to bring people to safety here, but they all came home empty. Not being able to help those people has been frustrating for everybody.”
On Saturday and Sunday, the West Virginia Air National Guard C-130s did make three flights that evacuated about 200 people displaced by Katrina to the 130th Airlift Wing at Charleston’s Yeager Airport, where they received medical screenings, meals, showers and clothing before being bused to Camp Dawson in Preston County.
Fabulous.
capelza
All politics aside, this kind of thing must be extremely aggravating and disheartening for people who want to help, who are trained to help. I really feel for them.
Champ Chelsea
So what was FEMA’s and the Local’s (“federal officials and their counterparts in states affected by the hurricane”) mistake? Why did the planes return empty? Who made that decision? What is the reasoning of whoever made the decision to send the planes away?
See, these questions would be answered in an article by a proper journalist. Expect to hear these half-stories in the next few days. Until I hear the answers, color me skeptical.
Demdude
In all of the horrible events that occurred in the last week or so, I would like to just point out at least something we can all be proud of:
Look at the outpouring of concern and concrete action taken by the fellow citizens of this country for the people in the effected areas. The disappointment of the folks in West Virginia over the inability to help these people. In Iowa, they were setup for 1000 people to be transported Tuesday. It didn’t happen (not FEMA related). They were disappointed. Again, because that they could not partcipate in helping their fellow citizens. These stories are happening all over this country.
Not trying to get all Pollyanna on everybody, but it is nice to at least comforting to know you are not alone in the event of calamity.
ghostcat
Ever hear about the 750 Brits killed in a training exercise for D-Day? Get a grip, people. Massive operations like this are always replete with snafu’s, especially when the chain of command is murky. (There’s this silly litle thing called the U.S. Constitution that talks about the States and crap like thate there.) Jeeze.
Stephen
For the past two weeks, I’ve been a patient at the Air Force’s most premiere hospital at Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas: Wilford Hall. Last Tuesday, my pulmonologist enters my room looking like total shit and I ask him what’s up? “Well,” he says, “A group of us were sent to New Orleans in the dead of night in a C130 and as we’re making our approach to the airport, we’re suddenly told that we won’t be able to land because the lights aren’t in operation. So we have to return to San Antonio. Total bullshit. I can’t believe how fucked up everything is.”
Needless to say, my doc was realllly pissed off at how everythign materalized.
I’ve had countless doctors and nurses tell me how bad the situation is in New Orleans. Indeed, some expressed the notion that they’d rather be in Baghdad then head back to NO.
On a happier note, Tuesday night was a much better experience all around for Wilford Hall and its personell as over 50 patients arrived from Keesler AFB, Mississippi, and we’re treated on location, then at the hospital. A great sight.
ppGaz
Hmm. Licensed pilot speaking (that would be me).
1. They didn’t ascertain this before takeoff? If the lights were intermittent, they had no alternate ….
2. Baton Rouge, a few mins away, was not available?
The story sounds very fishy to me. I have several thousand hours flying time and taught flying for ten years.
More facts, please.
DougJ
Come on Colie, you know this is no time to play the blame game. There will be plenty of time to determine why the plane went to the wrong city later? Your criticism is underming the relief operations. Why do you hate America?
Stephen
ppgaz-
that’s all the doctor said to me, that the airport lights weren’t working at it wasn’t safe for a landing. this sounded odd to me, too, but i wasn’t going to hold him to fish out questions. the guy still had his flighsuit on.
ppGaz
In his defense, he may not have gotten the full straight poop from the flight crew.
norbizness
Here’s one that I just read about today:
“The original Federal Disaster Declaration issued on August 27th included every parish in Louisiana except those likely to be struck. It does not include New Orleans or the surrounding area.
A second Disaster Declaration that included New Orleans was not issued until August 29th.
These are from the White House site. They screwed up. The tip of Louisiana was the last area to receive a disaster declaration.
Nothing was being sent to New Orleans until after the storm because there was no authorization.”
If I’m missing something, it should be fairly obvious. BTW, original source and pretty map here.
Mike S
What a lousy article. We got the who, what when and where, but the whole “how” thing is missing.
Patrick
I agree with Champ above. I don’t see how this is titled FEMA’s problem. Not saying it isn’t, but the article doesn’t say that FEMA screwed this up.
Please, please, please remember FEMAs role. To assist local and state. Just because we’re ten days in doesn’t mean that FEMA has overall command. Things on the ground are still being run by local and state, with delegation of some things.
Yes, it’s a MFF (monkey xxxxxxx a football) down there right now. It’s a disaster.
Stormy70
Interesting.
shark
Here’s the thing….so many people don’t seem to understand just how FEMA can be hobbled by state and local idiocy (by the way, which will always happen despite the best efforts and communications whenever so many jusisdictions are involved in something no matter who is in overall charge)
Was this a FEMA fuckup or a local and state caused FEMA fuck up? Big difference you know.
Nikki
Yesterday, one of my co-workers walked through the building asking for cash donations to pay for food that our shipping department was preparing to send to our sister station in Mississippi. Seems that the shipping department managed to get satellite phones down to them over the weekend so they could call us and let us know how things are going. They subsequently called and begged us to send food because they had none and were hungry. I was told that the woman who called became hysterical before the call went dead. My co-worker told me today that the food should arrive tomorrow as Fedex had finally set up a route to get care packages moving in that region. We should find out tomorrow if they got the food.
We are a federal agency.
I don’t believe things are going as well in Mississippi as their governor claims they are.
jg
How long did Oklahoma wait before calling FEMA in ’95? I wasn’t into politics then so if it was mentioned at the time I must have missed it. Did they immediately show up or were they called when OK City realized they needed help?
Marko
Has anyone considered the possibility that people would rather get driven to Texas and get $2k debit cards than get deported to West Virginia in a cargo plane?
I agree it would be criminal if there were people lined up that wanted to get out and red tape prevented them from leaving . . . all the article says is that the planes returned empty due to some unspecified snafu.
I would say that a lack of passengers indicates that things on the ground had improved by Wednesday to “Better Than A Trip In A Cargo Plane to West Virginia”. How is that a failure?
DougJ
Did they have phones in Oklahoma in 1995?
Demdude
On the news (in Iowa), they said that they are shipping to people to a different state everyday. The conditions are: 1.) They a have a full plane and 2.) People want to go there. Yesterday was Wisconsin. Nobody showed up.
Patrick
DougJ,
Holy crap, that’s harsh. Next you’ll be suggesting that they didn’t need phones because they lived with all their relatives anyway.
Or maybe I’ll write that. Too soon to tell.
Demdude
Ooops, here is a link to local story.
Here.
Trent
Sorry if someone mentioned this already, but i only just got home.
Could all of these snafus be due to the fact that, not just the military bodies, are in Iraq, but the smart, efficient, military commanders who normally take care of these things, are in Iraq?
I’m really not trying to make political hay here. (For once.) But it just seems odd that the military personnel aren’t getting the orders and direction that they normally get.
I mean, it’s one thing to snooze through vacation, but a lot of this stuff should just run like clockwork, don’t you think? Red tape is no explanation for it.
RIchard Aubrey
Red tape is regulations and rules. Some of it is required to see things go the way they’re supposed to go. It’s red tape when you double check to see if the Red Cross website is really a scam run out of Brazil. It’s making people show ID before getting free food to demonstrate they’re from NO instead of down the block.
Red tape becomes a problem when it trumps common sense, when somebody is in deep trouble because what might have saved him wasn’t properly signed for.
The five-plane thing wasn’t, apparently, red tape, but somebody got something wrong. You never know. The organizer expected the folks to show up. They didn’t. Why not? Is the reason that they no longer needed to be moved? That’s good. Is the reason that transport disappeared? Did the organizers get the wrong airport?
BTW. It was 750 Americans who died at Slapton Sands when E-boats got into the fleet. Not Brits.
jobiuspublius
Maybe there is a preferance towards a Texas relocation because Houston is going thru a boom and people have found jobs quickly. Plus, it’s close to LA, so that evacuees can have any easier time recovering belongings.
Stormy70
Dallas evacuees are finding jobs and housing here, too.
OKC, I remember when the feds came in, they started to hide info from the locals and I think they completely bungled the investigation into the OKC bombing. It was the biggest BOOM I’ve ever heard and it shook my apartment building and puffed up the kitties. I was about 10 miles away. My husband was 2 blocks away, but in a single story building. One good thing, Connie Chung pissed off the whole city and pretty much ended her career. You can thank me later.
B. Ross
Not red tape. Incompetence.
SGP
Patrick’s comment about FEMA’s role being to “assist” state and local authorities is a good thing to remember. A conversation I had today illustrated to me exactly how limited FEMA’s authority is before a disaster occurs. I work as a supervisor for a major airline involved in transporting people and supplies in to BTR. Today at work I was talking with a friend of mine that is a pilot with the same airlines. He had been flying missions into BTR and so had spent sometime there and mentioned a conversion he had during a layover there with a FEMA guy. It seems the FEMA guy was a little pissed about all the flak FEMA was taking from the media since he had been there since the friday BEFORE the hurricane hit and they had been prepared to provision the Superdome with supplies and rations in case the facility was needed for housing people. However the governor and the state FEMA instructed them not too because they did not want to do something that might have the effect of encourging people to stay in New Orleans instead of evacuating. I have not heard any reports regarding anything of this nature in the press and who knows, the FEMA guy could be just making this up, but I know my friend and I believe that he did have this conversation
DougJ
The pilot was distracted by the lights from MoveOn.org’s anti-war candle-light vigils. Those people will stop at nothing in their anti-Bush jihad.
SDN
As for trashing FEMA:
FEMA (as an agency) hasn’t been worth the powder it would take to
blow it away for years. This article was written in 1995 (under whose Administration? what party?):
LINK
“In everything it did, FEMA appeared to live up to the
description once given to it by South Carolina Sen. Ernest
Hollings: “the sorriest bunch of bureaucratic jackasses I’ve ever
known.” “
DougJ
That’s pretty convincing SDN. You found one person who criticized FEMA under Clinton.
SDN, there’s got to be a way you can blame hurricane Katrina and the goverment’s slow response on Clinton. Here’s some ideas:
Bill Bennett style: Outrage is dead after Clinton. That is why no one in the Bush administration cared about the thousands of poor black people who died while they were on vacation.
911 style: Clinton had eight years to fix those levees. Bush had only been in office for five years. Therefore, the blame lies with Clinton.
I’m sure you can find something better than either of those. Go hunt around newsmax and freerepublic for a while. Then write some assinine, incoherent post about it that John Cole can agree with.
carpeicthus
I knew that if DougJ were really a liberal he must have been a twisted genius to keep up that front. These responses show that I’m right — each are bright spots in the cesspool that John’s comments have become.