The WSJ has a pretty interesting piece on why almost everyone in the media and elsewhere went to bed Monday night thinking New Orleans had been spared the worst-case scenario, and why we were all wrong:
On Sunday, Sept. 4, Tim Russert of NBC’s “Meet the Press” asked Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to explain President Bush’s statement that the government couldn’t have anticipated breaches in levees in New Orleans.
Mr. Chertoff talked about news coverage. “Well, I think if you look at what actually happened, I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers, and I saw headlines, ‘New Orleans Dodged The Bullet,’ ” he said. “Because if you recall, the storm moved to the east and then continued on and appeared to pass with considerable damage but nothing worse. It was on Tuesday that the levee — may have been overnight Monday to Tuesday — that the levee started to break.”
But now it is known that major levee breaks occurred much earlier than that, starting in the morning of Monday, Aug. 29, the day Hurricane Katrina made landfall. Even as the storm veered off and many observers felt a sense of relief, the Industrial Canal levee in eastern New Orleans was giving way, and a rush of water swiftly submerged much of the Lower Ninth Ward and areas nearby, trapping thousands of people on rooftops and in attics. The 17th Street Canal levee also was breached early Monday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers now believes, resulting in a slower-rising flood over a larger area.
Yet it wasn’t until Tuesday that most people across the country, apparently including Mr. Chertoff, realized that any levees at all had been breached. Did media outlets get it wrong, as Mr. Chertoff claimed? Some did, some didn’t.
A look at news reports of the events of Aug. 29 paints a picture of confusion, miscommunication and conflicting information among some government officials and news media. Several major news outlets, including Viacom Inc.’s CBS network and National Public Radio reported the breaking of the Industrial Canal and flooding on Monday, although not all of the reports acknowledged the extent of the devastation. The Wall Street Journal reported the Industrial Canal breach but no others.
Read the whole thing. I am just swamped today with a number of different things going on, so I apologive for the sparse posting and even worse responses in comments. I will catch up later.
slide
Just an absolute liar as this proves.
Patrick
You’re just a house monkey for the VRWC. This can’t be. Bush lied when he said they didn’t think the levies would break. APOLOGIST! Everybody knew the levies would break! RACIST! Those newspaper headlines are just more proof that the media is controlled by Karl Rove. BUSH HATES BLACK PEOPLE AND FAGS!
(just the opening salvo of screeching)
slide
So let me get this straight, a huge Cat 4/5 hurricane heading towans one of our most vulnurable cities in the nation and Michael Chertof, head of Homeland Security, is getting his intel from the morning newspapers? God we are in deep trouble in this country.
Defense Guy
Slide
You ignorant ass, most of those headlines are NOT about the flooding in NO. They are about the devestating affect of the Hurricane itself. Good lord man, try to stay focused.
Miller
We all know what the White House thinks of CBS. And they don’t actually listen to PBS, although they do pay consultants to listen and keep track of what is being said about the Administration.
Douglas
Fox News reported on Monday that the levees had given way. Surely someone at the White House, Homeland Security or FEMA watches Fox News.
John Cole
You could A.) Read the fucking story I have linked before commenting or B.) Note most of the headlines proving him an ABSOLUTE LIAR are about Mississippi.
Most of us, including me, thought NO had dodged a fucking bullet. And you might check the comments to note that Mr. Know it All, Joe Albanese, seemed to agree with the sentiments that things were worse than they previously were thought. Of course, you do get fucking smarter with this hindsight of yours.
Now you are a dishonest hack and a partisan fool, so I recognize you will grant the truth no quarter in your ideological zeal. The rest of us, however, might get something out of that article.
God, you are a dick.
Jim Allen
John, have you seen any Tuesday morning newspapers with the headlines, ‘New Orleans Dodged The Bullet,’ or anything like that?
I haven’t, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there. I would thing by now someone from Chertoff’s team would have provided them, but no one has to my knowledge.
Krista
Good point…the media did have a fairly broad range of messages, mostly dependent upon geographical proximity to the damage, from what I saw in a quick headline scan. However, why would the head of Homeland Security be acting based on media reports, as opposed to the information received from the local and state authorities, who would be in a slightly better position to say what was going on? Aren’t these the same people who constantly belittle the “liberal” media? So, we’re supposed to NOT believe the media if it says anything bad about the government, but about virtually everything else, it’s the ultimate authority…have I got it about right?
goonie bird
Maybe more people would not have died if the eco-freaks had,nt put their SAVE THE LEVEE SCREW MINNOW ahaead of this necessary things of levee repair
slide
John Cole the apologist in chief says this:
ok… your post:
So, it was reported by SOME news outlets that the levees had been breeched RIGHT EINSTEIN? My point is, shouldn’t the HEAD OF FUCKIN HOMELAND SECURITY have at least as good intel as the news media? Aren’t they monitoring this? Don’t they have people on the ground? Aren’t they in touch with local official? John could you be more of an ass?
Cole:
Hey, genius, I’m not the head of HOMELAND SECURITY….. You are judging what the Chertoff should know by what YOU know or I know? lol..
John you really are an complete ass on this and everythign you post you confirm that.
jg
Leaders of the United States of America in the 21st century are saying they got their information about a cat 5 hurricane due to hit New Orleans early monday morning from the the tuesday morning newspaper headlines. Why is anything else being discussed? Who can let them off the hook with this excuse? Who can defend it? FOX, CNN, MSNC all reported the levees breaking on monday afternoon. We all saw it. Our leaders don’t watch the news? We let them pass by saying the next days headlines (which have never been produced) said ‘NO dodged a bullet’? I think a lot of people are too scared of being seen as ‘left’ to ever look at an issue objectively. If the right can put out even the flimsiest idea to cling to to offset an opposing argument most will jump on it so they can stay on the side the ‘left’ isn’t on..
John Cole
Joe- Any insult you hurl at me I wear as a badge of honor.
Mike S
Interesting article. It seems to me that it was known to be catastrophic in New Orleans, but it’s hard to ardue with the quotes.
I’m sorry your blog has turned into such an unpleasant place. Whenever I commented about a thread over hear I didn’t name it because I knew that too many people who would read the comments would come and destroy any semblance of order and discussion. I have been just as guilty in the past of causing some flame wars, but now it’s just rediculous.
You’re a good man John. I disagree with you on a lot of issues, including Katrina, but I prefer you to 90%+ of the Republicans I come across these days and 95%+ of the people from my side of the fence that have been posting here recently. Hopefully people will find a new sandbox to have their playground fights in and your blog can return to it’s mostly pleasent, sometimes acrimonious self it used to be.
Jim Allen
Re: “Joe- Any insult you hurl at me I wear as a badge of honor”.
I like that — far more literate than the old rubber/glue thing. :)
slide
imagine that… Meyers ALSO saw the “Dodged a Bullet Headlines” same as Chertoff… wow… now you dont think they got together and made this shit up now do you? Nahhhhh… they won’t do a thing like that right? lol
chadwig
I’m sure glad that FEMA gets it’s disaster information from fictitious news reports. The only news source that even has the phrase “dodged a bullet” on that tuesday was NewsMax. Every other headline in a Nexus search screamed “Catastrophe” and “devestation” etc. Bush is a liar. Chertoff is a liar. And the Washington post is populated by incompetents and apologists.
Try again John, I’m sure there’s a reason somewhere why Bush isn’t responsible. Try looking in the haystack…
docG
My side is good and right. Your side is bad and wrong.
What a scintillating debate. I also heard that N.O. had dodged a major bullet after the hurricane, so what? (Insert Krista’s excellent comments here.) More relevant questions would seem to be:
1. Who was assigned to watch the levees after the storm, and by whom (if no one was assigned, who should have and are they still employed)?
2. To whom did they report?
3. When did the assigned personnel first report the levee breeches and to whom?
4. What actions did the people receiving the reports take and at what time?
5. What were the recommended courses of action; did they occur, if yes, when, if no, why not?
Now please comment about the “blame game”, the Orwellian phraseology currently employed to duck any blame.
croatoan
zzyzx
For a few hours there, it did look like New Orleans dodged a bullet. I remember telling my girlfriend that night that we would be going to Jazzfest.
However, it was only a brief period between the earlier, “New Orleans is so screwed,” and the later, “Damn, the levees broke,” so that shouldn’t affect the attitude of responders too much.
Jim Allen
CNN has just reported that Michael Brown has resigned as head of FEMA.
Not “has been fired”. “Has resigned”.
jg
I would have taken the promotion.
slide
hey even Michelle Malkin knew better than NO dodged a bullet. Read her post on TUESDAY MORNING 6:30 am. A snippet:
Wow…. Michelle Malkin for head of HOMELAND SECURITY. She knew what was going on but Myers and Chertoff didn’t? lol… KOOL-AID … get your KOOL-AID…
So John Cole and their ilk want you to belive that everyone thought everything was okey dokey on Tuesday morning because of what they read in the papers. The head of the joint chiefs makes military decisions based on mythical fake headlines…. my my…. Kool Aid… get your Kool aid… You want more of Malkin’s blog on TUESDAY MORNING? You got it:
. Yeah… DODGED A BULLET.
John Cole
Tuesday morning was the 30th, shit for brains, when it was becoming more widely known that the levees failed and failed catastrophically in several places.
Which, of course, is precisely Chertoff’s point. The Tuesday morning papers were written when? Monday night.
You may be a little confused on the timeline, because by then you and Red Dan at DKos were busy blaming the failures on budget cuts.
sean
and Chertoff should be relying on the morning papers?!?!? God help us all.
jg
Who cares? You’re letting him use this excuse? You knew what was happening because you, like most everyone else, watched the news all day monday. This is his excuse? And you buy it? You’re defending it? WTF?
John Cole
For the love of God, it wasn’t an excuse. IT WAS AN EXPLANATION.
You fucking people would have been burning witches 300 years ago had a hurricane hit.
jg
Excuse explanation, whatever. You’re defending it? The head of the department of homeland security waits until he reads the morning paper after a cat 5 hurricane is heading to a place that won’t survive a cat 5 hurricane, to decide what to do. He’s offering this, and you’re thinking, Ok that makes sense. And we’re screwed up?
Krista
EXCELLENT question. It’s inconceivable to think that someone with local or state authority would not have been monitoring those levees during and after the hurricane. So that leaves a couple of possibilities: either the people monitoring the levees fell asleep at the switch and didn’t call FEMA, or they DID call the national authorities, who didn’t believe them because the media had mixed messages about the danger.
That just doesn’t seem right, though. Both of those possibilities suggest a stunning level of incompetence, which very well might be the case — but I’d dearly love to find out if there is some sort of logical explanation for this before jumping to that conclusion.
Defense Guy
It is always interesting to watch people try to rewrite history that is yet so fresh in the memory. Forget truth, the neocon cabal simply must be crucified, even if it takes lies to do it. Lies to power slider, fight the good fight!
Krista
John Cole hon…are you okay? You seem particularly perturbed today. I know you’re disagreeing with a lot of what’s being said today, but you usually seem able to keep your cool…
sean
explanation of what? that I, Sean Stone – Director of Nothing, knew that the floodwalls were breached on Monday but Michael Chertoff, Director of Homeland Security, didn’t know until Tuesday? or is Chertoff trying to explain that it was ok he didn’t know b/c after all, the morning papers didn’t know either?
slide
John, even you can’t belive what you are saying. The head of HOMELAND SECURITY is depending on the morning newspapers, which you say are written hours earlier, for his information? Come on john. please you are insulting all of our intelligence with this nonsense.
Jim Allen
I wonder if Chertoff would have waited until the papers came out on September 12th to see if the towers were still standing.
slide
The only one’s lying are Chertoff and Myers. They NEVER read a headline that said NO Dodged a Bullet.
Again from Malkins Blog written at 6:30am on Tuesday morning is an article from the Times-Picayune:
The levees failed MONDAY MORNING. You mean to tell me that that information, that the AP was reporting, that the Times-Picyune was reporting, that Michelle Malkin was reporting was UNKNOWN to the head of Homeland Security? God what an indictment.
slide
John Cole:
For most of us an unacceptable and quite frankly, unbelievable, EXPLANATION.
John Cole
I have seen nothing in which it says that Chertoff was relying solely on newspaper accounts for his information. What Chertoff was doing was relaying the fact that many people, himself included, did not realize that the levee’s had breached until much later than he should have.
As a way of pointing that out to a press corps and public, he used the papers as an example of what was the conventional wisdom.
That does not mean it was all the information he had,it does not mean he was relying solely on the press, etc. It is an explanation of how things were suddenly much worse than what everyone initially expected. Furthermore, I have seen the press conference in question. Since you are all so heavy into context, you might actually examine the context of that quote, and decide whether it is an ‘excuse’ or an ‘explanation’ for what was going on.
I have stated repeatedly that I think one of the inexcusable errors by all levels of government was the breakdown of information. Why did they not multiple redundant methods of communication at every level? I don’t know, and I do know that Homeland Security made this a priority (or at least said it was), and gave money to municipalities all over the nation. There are a lot of things to question, a lot of things to look at, but it is going to require honesty on the part of everyone.
And that includes all of my new-found disaster expert friends here in the comments section of this obscure website.
BoDiddly
Could it be that the communication channels weren’t sufficient to successfully relay the information that there were major problems with the levees? The information transmitted prior to loss of communication was likely inconclusive, as there were conflicting reports in the MSM and online as to whether the levees had been topped or breached.
This would leave any and everybody who was trying to orchestrate a proper response caught between overutilization of resources to a nonexistent threat (when there were obvious needs for resources in other areas) or waiting for more information to firmly establish the nature of the emergency (what they seem to have done).
I’m not really arguing either side as established fact (or for that matter readily establishable fact), simply posing a perfectly logical possibility. There were a lot of areas, particularly before the storm struck, in which a risk/benefit analysis was perfectly aligned with the odds (an example would be deeming it unnecessarily expensive to make all levees Cat-5 safe, considering the rarity of storms of that magnitude and the odds of it hitting New Orleans at just the right spot), and this may have been another outworking of what the previous research hadn’t addressed. Everyone expected the levees to be topped, but although not inconceivable, it was deemed highly unlikely that they would actually break.
Another possibility as to why there was more reliance than prudence would demand upon the MSM’s coverage is that they were virtually the only open channels of communication in the wake of the storm. That is a problem for the local governments. A handful of fully-charged satellite phones in the hands of the proper people would probably have made a huge difference in FEMA’s response. If it comes out that communication was initiated at the local level then ignored or misdirected, there are some big-time personnel changes coming. More likely, you had people responsible for relaying information about the levees were trying to place calls on their waterlogged, no-service-available cell phones.
There’s an adage that’s pertinent here: “Nobody plans to fail. They fail to plan.”
tBone
Translation: “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Brownie.”
Jorge
Has anyone found a newspaper with a “Dodged a Bullet Headline” yet?
Or is the point here that since the papers were talking about the devastation in Miss. that we could as readers infer that NO had dodged a bullet?
Is that the point? That the Head of Homeland security inferred from reading about the devastation in Miss. that New Orleans was ok?
slide
Defense Guy said:
Well, with all the documentation I’ve provided here I guess it is YOU that is the IGNORANT ASS, unless you think Malkin should have better intel than the Head of Homeland Security.
Defense Guy
Prove it you insufferable prick.
Jim Allen
He should have been tossed bodily through the door, not allowed to walk out under his own power.
Just saying.
John Cole
Quite ‘excusing’ Chimpy McBushhitlerKatrinaBurton, Bodiddly.
Otto Man
Here’s the point.
Chertoff, Myers and now Bush have all insisted they saw newspaper headlines that said “New Orleans Dodged a Bullet” — either verbatim or roughly translated. They’ve used that as an excuse for why the federal response was delayed.
However, it seems no newspaper had anything close to that kind of headline. Not on Sunday, not on Monday, not on Tuesday. Don’t believe me? You can go here and take a look for yourself. I’ve checked several days and can’t find anything that resembles what they claim they saw. Not a single one, much less a resounding drumbeat of bullet-dodging.
Got it? They’re all claiming to have seen something that never existed. That’s called a lie.
slide
John Cole:
Seems as though Myers was relying it it pretty heavily:
.
slide
The Bush administration lie? Impossible.
linda
“shit for brains” at 3:31 — my, my what happened to the new, improved rules of decorum. but i digress.
mr chertoff, master of disaster, presumably has access to original source information, no? and, presumably, the need to communicate with key organizations might have occurred to someone, no? uh, something like:
“The New Orleans office of the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning at 8:14 a.m. Monday, saying “a levee breach occurred along the industrial canal at Tennessee Street. 3 to 8 feet of water is expected due to the breach.”
******
Yet some government officials certainly appeared aware of a breach and said so on network television. At 7:33 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 29, Gov. Kathleen B. Blanco said on NBC, “I believe the water has breached the levee system, and is — is coming in.”
“In its Aug. 29 online edition, the New Orleans Times-Picayune first reported a breach in the 17th Street Canal levee at 2 p.m., citing City Hall officials. No other major news outlets picked up that report. The newspaper’s Web site also reported massive flooding near the Industrial Canal, writing that city officials “fielded at least 100 calls from people in distress in the Lower 9th Ward and eastern New Orleans.” At about 2:30, it reported that the Industrial Canal had been breached, citing a National Weather Service report.”
********
“Officials with the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers said last week that one canal breach came to the attention of corps personnel early Monday, Aug. 29 and another by midday.”
jobiuspublius
You would expect the DHS to have a better awareness of what’s happening in a disaster zone than the rest of us. It just works better that way for us. But, that’s not the point of this thread, I guess. Too bad, because it’s more important.
jg
What conventional wisdom? what the hell are you talking about? Everyone knew on monday the that the city was flooding. The people in charge are supposed to know more than us, to have have better access to information than us, not less.
How are you not mad at this? How are you mad at the people who are mad at this? This BS is being repeated in other departments of the federal gov’t now. Itsorganized bullshit, in plain site no less. Amazing how deep the fear goes.
slide
linda, don’t confuse Cole with facts, he’ll get mad at you and call you all kinds of names.
tBone
Norm Ornstein talked about this briefly in a piece last week, without really going into detail.
The entire article is a refreshing change of pace – instead of just going after FEMA, the state or the locals like everybody else, he expands the blame game to include Congress.
Defense Guy
See how hard some attempt to rewrite history? You dicks who keep claiming that everyone knew the city was flooding on Monday are just lying. Hell, anything to make the administration look bad is worth doing I guess.
So then, where are the cries from the local administrators ON MONDAY that the city was busy being flooded, that the levees had broken?
jg
Defense Guy, you didn’t know on monday? Weren’t you watching the news too?
slide
Defense guy are you as incredibly dumb as your last post suggests? Question:
Answer:
.
Otto Man
First of all, thanks for calling us “dicks.” I thought you were one of the classy ones. Guess I was wrong.
Second of all, we’re not the ones trying to rewrite history. Bush, Myers and Certoff have all claimed they saw headlines that no one else ever saw. They’ve attempted to rewrite history to serve their purposes, not the other way around.
Can anyone find a newspaper that has the “dodged the bullet” theme they keep pounding? If not, that would suggest they are making shit up, and not us.
jobiuspublius
Get it Defense Guy?
Otto Man
And please re-read some of the above posts. They contain three different citations that local people did, in fact, know the levees were breaking on Monday and did, in fact, get the word out.
wilson
I note from the after-storm photos in NO that the water rose pretty gradually. This was not like the Johnstown flood in PA, or the flood after the Mulholland failure in the Los Angeles area.
In NO, the sun was shining, and water rose gradually. Still, that should have been noted by experts in FEMA, NO and LA (the crew that interfaces with the Corps of Engineers at least) as a catastrophe in the making.
If we are not going to have elected leaders (Bush, Blanco and Nagin) fall on their swords, we should still have responsible staff heads rolling in NO, Gretna, Louisiana.
If the elected folks at the state and local levels cannot find persons to relieve and “resign”, analogs to Brown of FEMA, the Democrats still have no credibility.
tBone
Yes – the Grenada Daily Star.
Chertoff must really be on top of things if he’s reading papers from rural Mississippi counties of 22,000 people. I wonder if he could tell me how much Grenada High School made at their bake sale, or who Esther Perlman played bridge with last week?*
*Note: This will probably not make sense if you’ve never read a paper from a small rural community.
Otto Man
The Grenada Daily Star. Wow, you dug deep!
I doubt that’s what Chertoff was talking about, since he said he picked up the papers Tuesday morning and that’s a Monday story from a paper that I really doubt is delivered/carried in Washington D.C.
Unless, of course, Chertoff’s a big fan of the mighty, mighty Grenada H.S. Chargers.
Chris
John
I work on tv documentaries, mostly cable tv. Two years ago I worked on a project about NO and hurricanes that didn’t go into production for various reasons, but suffice it to say that the proposal was titled “New Orleans: City In The Crosshairs.”
I spoke with everyone you could think of, the Army C of E, Tulane profs, the Senate representation, on and on.
The number one, and very widely perceived, threat was described in detail to me….the delayed storm surge, the levys, and Lake P flooding the bowl.
There is no way that anyone with any amount of passing knowledge of the situation went to bed easy that night just because the storm veered east a bit and the wind damage was less than expected.
There is no traction to this line of post-game, none at all.
Chris
Krista
That’s a definite possibility. But why should the communication channels have been so complicated? The local authorities find out that the levees are rising to dangerous levels, call the state, who then calls FEMA.
Frankly, I think that the response could have been better, but I don’t think that the responsibility lies with one particular level of government or one organization. Instead of chiding everybody for playing “the blame game”, maybe what the federal government should be doing is saying, “Okay, people are pissed about this, and there’s obviously room for improvement in our disaster response. So, where did the ball drop, how many times, why, and what can we do to make sure this mistake isn’t repeated?” The state and local governments should also be asking themselves those EXACT same questions. I think that’s the only way that anything will be learned from this, which might actually be of use the next time a natural disaster (or a terrorist attack) hits.
John Cole
Novel idea.
KC
Good article.
BumperStickerist
Well, John’s right in that nearly all the deaths caused by the hurricane, lack of evacuation, and such was the result of poor local and state governance.
That said, there are a couple of areas where FEMA in particular comes into blame and we might even get to whack the National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley or DHS Chief Michael Chertoff over the head with a stick.
But Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco are primarily responsible for what happened August 27th – August 30th.
slide
Even FOX knew by Monday evening the levees had been breeched:
But not our head of Homeland Security or the chairman of the Joint Chief’s of Staff. Wow. Confidence inspiring isn’t it?
Pb
You know what… *I* knew the levees had broken as of Monday night, I was reading about it (in increasing horror) on the much-maligned (here) Daily Kos. Apparently what I *should* have been doing at the time, though, was calling up Chertoff, Brown and Bush, to inform them of this confidential, unanticipated information that the Times-Picayune of New Orleans was reporting on Monday. Or maybe John Cole could have called Chertoff that morning and given him a heads-up.
tBone
Actually, he might be a fan of their editorial page.
jobiuspublius
Why pick on the entire party? They’re not even in power. Don’t get me wrong, I think there is alot wrong with that party. They keep electing leadership that fails to stand up to the dominant parties leadership, who failed to lead.
How do you know that the locals didn’t do all they could?
Otto Man
Wow. Who knew that Free Republic had a newspaper?
linda
“So, where did the ball drop, how many times, why, and what can we do to make sure this mistake isn’t repeated?” “Novel idea.”
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=245234&&
September 4, 2005
Senator Clinton Calls on President Bush to Appoint an Independent National Commission To Review Katrina Relief Efforts
your support is appreciated.
slide
shit, by Tuesday morning even Cole was reporting about the levee breech:
.
PotVsKtl
He didn’t know because the newspapers didn’t tell him. Or, some newspapers didn’t tell him. And that’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation. So get off FEMA’s back. This type of failure is perfectly acceptable as long as you have an explanation. Stupid lefties. Quit trying to rewrite history. Dick for brains shitholes. LOL!
Defense Guy
I knew about it by Tuesday morning, but was like most of the country on Monday. So, I was wrong, and you therefore have my apologies for the unwarrented attacks and bad language.
So the question then is why was this not communicated to all interested parties?
tBone
You would have known, if you didn’t rely on all of the left-wing news organizations for your information. :)
p.lukasiak
I remember watching TV after Katrina had passed, and seeing that the focus was on Gulfport and the destruction of that waterfront….rather than the fact that 20% of New Orleans was underwater.
The emphasis with regard to the news coverage of NO was, in fact, that the “catastrophic failure” of the levee system that could happen in a category 5 hurricane had been averted. (It should be noted that this catastrophic failure was not because the levees would be breached but because they would be overtopped by a storm surge. Discussions of NO’s levee system being able to withstand a Category 3 hurricane are based not on “breeches” of the system, but what happens when the storm surge is so high that the water level exceeds the height of the levees)
But soon came the news that the levees were breeched, and that 80% of NO would SOON be underwater. There was not sense of “panic” however—-rather there was the sense that there an evacuation of those left behind, and sufficient time to do that evacuation.
It was the complete failure of FEMA to accomplish that evacuation (along with the failure to provide for the people of NO when that evacuation stalled for whatever reason) that is at issue here.
*************************
John’s attempted defense of Chertoff, etc. is so lame its almost laughable. Does he really expect us to believe that the head of DHS mades his decisions on Tuesday based on the Tuesday morning papers—-or that this is an excusable way of making decisions?
Personally, I think that FEMAs failure was “political”. Relief efforts were concentrated on Missippippi and Alabama rather than Louisiana because the former states had Republican governors and two GOP Senators, while Louisiana had a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators. The fact that FEMA had become a far less “professional” organization, and had instead become one where the upper levels of leadership were filled with political hacks means that FEMA was more responsive to the concerns of the “GOP” states. Averting the developing catastrophe in New Orleans was given no priority at all, because the GOP bigshots in Mississippi and Alabama were demanding results in their own states.
(Perhaps nothing characterizes this better than one of Coles favority hobby horses—the “Walmart trucks full of water that were turned away from New Orleans” story. John loves to point out that these trucks weren’t “turned away” they were “diverted elsewhere”. There was clearly a pressing need for potable water in New Orleans — why was this water diverted “elsewhere” by FEMA, and what steps were taken to ensure that there was sufficient water in NO?)
PotVsKtl
Perhaps some parties were less than interested.
Davebo
Perhaps this blog should be renamed The Daily Cole
Chris
The point is, interested parties should have been sweating steel bullets about the levy system continually in the run-up and well into the extended aftermath of the storm.
It wasn’t a “need to be notified” situation, not to anyone with any passing knowledge. And that should have included FEMA and DHS.
slide
Apology accepted Defense Guy and you raise a good question. That is why this has to be investigated. There are several scenarios I can think of, none of them good.
1) They did know the levees had been breeched sometime on Monday and their comments about the “Dodge the Bullet” newsheadlines just a CYA exercise knowing they did a piss poor job responding and how else to explain Bush’s traveling to give speeches and play guitar when Cole even called it the “worst case scenario”
2) They really didn’t know. which would be astounding and very very scary. To think that all these news media had better intel than the head of Homeland Security, the President and the joint chiefs of staff is troubling.
3) They weren’t sufficiently involved. They didin’t really see the potential disaster looming in front of time. Disengaged. Asleep at the wheel. God help us all if that is the case.
4) They were abducted by an alien species in the middle of the night and experimented on.
Now do you see why we are calling for an investigation? None of the above possibilities are acceptable. Except to John Cole of course.
Defense Guy
Perhaps, I mean anything is possible. But in the light of FEMA’s great responses to the 4 Hurricanes that devestated Florida 1 year previous, I kind of doubt it.
Another Jeff
Hey Lukasiak, Louisiana has one Democratic and one Republican Senator. Get your facts straight, asshole. You’re an embarrassment to Philadelphia.
And in a city that’s produced Wilson Goode, John Street, and half the Abscam crooks, that’s no small feat.
slide
It was an election year and Florida a crucial state. Kinda motivates some people.
Another Jeff
“It was an election year and Florida a crucial state. Kind motivates some people.”
Don’t take this personally, Defense Guy, because i personally think slide is a tool, but you really didn’t see that one coming?
norbizness
Just a brief note: nobody’s responded to the challenge of finding the news report on bullet-dodging that (1) the head of the Homeland Security Department (2) the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and (3) the President of the United States remember seeing. And the challenge is being issued by a guy who named himself after the stoned bus driver from The Simpsons! The horror!
tBone
Au contraire, norbizness.
Nikki
John,
I started reading your blog regularly because I wanted a perspective from the Republican side without a lot of spin. I was very pleased to find your site and, though I didn’t always agree with you, I respected your mind.
However, as a result of your apparently desparate reasoning in this comments section, I am back to questioning your ability to effectively develop your students’ critical thinking skills.
You seem to have assumed the role of ostrich. What has occurred that has made you want to bury your head so deeply in the sand?
slide
Even THAT story had this:
.
slide
and even THAT story had this too:
Gotta do better than that. Anything else?
DougJ
I blame Al Gore. He had all the time in the world to put together that airlift for his fat cat buddies in that hospital in New Orleans, but he couldn’t take five minutes to pick up the phone and call Chertoff to tell him the levee had been breached?
Defense Guy
Apparently not. I suppose it is a weakness of mine to think that the overwhelming majority of people in this country do not base their response in times of crisis on political affiliation, race, or the need to win an election. To some, I guess this is just naive. I guess when you live in the land of conspiracy; everything is proof of the conspiracy.
Otto Man
I think they’ve taken the attitude of another Simpsons character, Mayor Quimby, who said: “This is an issue that as a town we are strong enough to ignore.”
norbizness
OK, TBone, how about a newspaper all three of the referenced people actually read?
“Very well then, instead of fleeing this town, I’ll stay here and grow fat off kickbacks and slush funds.”
jg
Different state and its a critical state in an election year. Don’t forget a previous president lost relection shortly after FEMA showed up 5 days after a devastating hurricane.
How do you explain the difference in FEMA’s response in florida and the one in N.O.?
DougL
John,
You have stated that you find fault with Gov. Blanco’s abdication of her disaster responsibilities in quickly calling for federal assistance — I think it would be accurate to say that you would even say “too quickly”.
Starting from the given that Gov. Blanco had let the situation get away from her — something which she deserves to be held accountable for — what would you, in her place, have done? Stating that you would not have gotten into the situation in the first place is not an acceptable answer?
You’re not suggesting that she should have muddled through a situation she lost control of for the sole reason that it’s her job and she should muddle through it, which likely would have resulted in even more loss of life, are you?
You bristle at suggestions that you’re an apologist for the administration and you’ve expressed your wish that there were more calm, reasoned dialog on your site. Here’s a chance to actually contribute something toward that stated goal. What other course of action would you have taken if you were in Gov. Blanco’s position of having lost control of the parts of the situation that were her responsibility and while still being in the midst of ongoing crisis?
Nikki
Considering that reports are now coming out that FEMA passed out relief monies to Florida communities that were over 100 miles from where the hurricane damage occurred…well…one tends to go with the conspiracy.
narvy
If I read this correctly, you are saying that Chertoff relayed (i.e., admitted) the fact that he should have known earlier. To me, that suggests dereliction. I doubt that you meant that, but how do you defend his not knowing when he should have?
narvy
In case it’s not clear, my question above is for John.
jobiuspublius
Nikki
And before you ask, here’s the link
p.lukasiak
My mistake. The GOP is so inept that its own senate website was not working, so I relied on another official looking (but non-official) source of information for determining the party affiliation of each states senators…
http://www.senate.com/state/la.html
http://www.senate.com/state/ms.html
http://www.senate.com/state/al.html
Defense Guy
Once again, everything is proof of the conspiracy for those that live in the conspiracy.
Well John, you are overrun. It is sad, but I suppose inevitable occurrence these days when you start criticizing the president. It is the level of commitment that you are willing to provide that is important, that the man is in need of criticizing notwithstanding. Once again, I need a break.
Steve S
With all fairness… Yes, most of us thought NO had dodged a bullet. I didn’t hear about the levee breaks until tuesday morning.
But that still points to some sort of breakdown in the emergency response. It seems to me that the news media ought to be reporting the intelligence the government has collected… rather than the government reacting upon the limited intelligence reported by the media.
That’s not to say CNN and others don’t sometimes report something before the government finds out about it… but it should be a shared collaboration, not some sort of bloody excuse.
BumperStickerist
Then again, with the Left it is always a good thing to, you know, read the whole quote:
And, lest we think that Michael Chertoff is just making crap up – let’s take a look at NBC’s Jim Miklas
So, I expect that Oliver Willis will be demanding Jim Mik. resign in disgrace. It might be worth considering, whether on the Left or Correct side of the issue, whether any newspaper stories are headlined (or subheaded) “dodged a bullet”.
Unless those on the Left are unable to read typeface less than 72 points or are suddenly disinterested now that John Aravosis has up a picture of front pages and has, to their minds, settled the issue.
Steve S
BTW… Krista wrote:
That’s actually quite refreshing and is exactly the kind of response I would expect from an administration willing to take this seriously, rather than just play politics with it.
I believe in one of George Will’s recent columns he mentioned that part of the failure was that the first responders, i.e. police and fire in the region, were also victims. He called the disaster biblical in proportion.
I believe there was a failure in the communication. Someone wasn’t watching the levees, etc. But at this point I’m not sure we can really say who that might have been, because the situation there turned so bad so rapidly. At this point the only thing we can really talk about honestly is the response, which was somewhat lacking.
BumperStickerist
to the Jim Miklaszewski ‘dodged a bullet’ cite.
The Chertoff quotes were from the Russert interview.
Krista
Wouldn’t that be nice? Mind you, I’m not sure if we want an administration who thinks like I do. Scary, scary stuff. :)
jg
Full quote or hacked quote he’s still trying to excuse his behavior by saying non-existent headlines in tueday morning newspapers were his guide to the catastrophy. This is acceptable? Defensible?
All the more reason to expect the federal gov’t to realize the local response is inadequate and get (back) to work. We’re losing a major US city and our leaders aren’t even watching the news? They don’t have better intel than us, they wait for the next days headlines? Honestly who still reads the morning paper for news? Its all yesterdays news, we all watch tv news or read the net for current news. How quaint that they still read the print media as though it was the 50’s.
chadwig
As a way of pointing that out to a press corps and public, he used the papers as an example of what was the conventional wisdom.
p.lukasiak
Immediately after Katrina passed, the Bataan (a US Navy ship) did overflights of New Orleans to assess the damage in order to assist in search and rescue missions (SHOCKINGLY, without getting a proclamation declaring martial law!!!) and should have been able to see that the levees had been breeched. One assumes that the US Navy is going to report this information to FEMA….
chadwig
You still have not adressed the point that THERE WERE NO SUCH HEADLINES TUESDAY MORNING. Find one and I’ll take back my contention that CHERTOFF IS A LIAR!
(sorry about the fudged post above)
linda
i know chimpy likes to shoot the messenger, but really, wouldn’t this be good news:
Q Can you tell us, have you accepted the resignation of Michael Brown, or have you heard about it?
THE PRESIDENT: I haven’t — no, I have not talked to Michael Brown — or Mike Chertoff; that’s who I’d talk to. As you know, I’ve been working. And when I get on Air Force One, I will call back to Washington. But I’ve been on the move.
Q Our understanding is he has resigned, he’s made a statement. Would that be appropriate —
THE PRESIDENT: I haven’t talked to Mike Chertoff yet, and that’s what I intend to do when I get on the plane. You know, I — you probably — maybe you know something I don’t know, but as you know, we’ve been working, and I haven’t had a chance to get on the phone.
jg
The headlines don’t exist and shockingly a lot of people saw them.
Why isn’t everyone mad at that? Why take the offered excuse and use it to be mad at the people who are mad about this bullshit? Why let yourself be manipulated? Think about what happened and how this is their explanation.
jg
Well thanks for showing up. You’re presence would have been much more appreciated 2 weeks ago but thanks for showing up.
I bet its hard work he’s doing too.
narvy
And I have seen nothing that says what he was relying on, or any indication, other than John’s assertion, that he meant “the example of what was the conventional wisdom” not to be taken literally.
jg
Conventional wisdom being what the media makes it. The conservatives control the media. So this ‘explanation’ is just furthering of the same bullshit, a confirming ‘fact’ I guess.
Can you say ‘cover story’? Its not the crime its the cover up right?
jobiuspublius
If DHS had the capability, like the FBI and the CIA, to use informants, then they wouldn’t be so clueless. Oh, no wait, they have NewsMax and Drudge. Nevermind.
jobiuspublius
Seems like the bus meme is a load of crap. But, why should we sour the kool-aid? Mmmm, tasty kool-aid, tasty.
DougJ
There’s a thought. Maybe they could actually station people on the ground near where the natural disaster has occurred or is likely to occur. Then these assets could report back to DHS about whether levees had broken, whether thousands of people were stranded in a convention center, if people need water, food, etc. There’s really no substitute for this kind of human intelligence.
I know I’m thinking outside the box here, but I think it’s time for DHS to get creative.
jobiuspublius
I say we ditch posse commitatus and air drop some navy seals into the water behind the levees where they can take precise measurements. When the levee breaks the flood waters will carry them into the city where they will be uniquely positioned to chase looters. The looters will never see them coming or know what hit them, with a snorkle. These specially trained Navy Seals can then gather up the stranded civilians, train them, and form them into elite counter-looting units.
Oh, who am I kidding. Government can’t do anything right. Give the contract to Blackwater, Caci, or Titan, or Bechtel even. Who knows?
tBone
Yeah, I posted a link to a tiny rural Mississippi newspaper because I thought it somehow validated Chretoff’s absurd talking point. Or maybe I was, you know, being sarcastic?
linda
“Government can’t do anything right.”
actually, government works just fine when staffed by personnel who believe in public service, as opposed to say, ill-equipped, political hacks looking for an easy paycheck.
but, thanks for trying.
jobiuspublius
linda, I hope you realize I was being sarcastic. Or, did I misread you?
CadillaqJaq
It seems a lot of folks who get lathered up about the Patriot Act are totally willing, if it suits them or their agenda, to allow the Feds to just stomp into sovereign states and cities. Then whine and complain wondering why the Feds wait until they are asked. (In 20/20 hindsight of course.) Strange.
I haven’t posted here in many weeks John Cole, so borrowing a line from moviedom’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: “Who are those guys?”
Pretty “Roomate.” I had one like him.
John S.
Yes John, please for the love of G-d actually earn the mantle of Bush Apologist and stay true to your Dear Leader – no matter what.
Or I suppose the above notion put forth was meant to convey a different message?
This seems to affirm that my interpretation is correct, since if it is devotion which is key, then certainly the fact that the President deserves criticizing is irrelevant.
Lest you unleash the frenzied scourge.
DougJ
I wonder if that’s why they thought there were WMDs in Iraq, too: they picked up the New York Times and it said “Saddam Has WMDs”. If we had better newspaper reporting, their job would be a whole lot easier.
jobiuspublius
narvy
I doubt that the hypocrites you allude to would complain a whole lot if the President exercised the power given to him under the law to address a catastrophe.
Yours has got to be the stupidest posting in this thread so far. I could try to beat it, but that would be …Hard Work (©George W. Bush, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005).
jobiuspublius
Past instances of FEMA have been able to suceed without the patriot act. Try again.
narvy
jobiuspublius –
Your post from the Guardian doesn’t do it justice! The first paragraph of the article is:
The effort to rebuild the Gulf Coast will be comparable to the rebuilding of lower Manhattan that has been done to date (and by implication of Bush’s words, completed).
No snarky remark here. I am at a loss for words.
jobiuspublius
jobiuspublius
lol, yes Narvy, I must Hate America, sorry. When the next hurricane hits there, we can do it again, cheaper. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
jobiuspublius
So, looking at “Cover-up: toxic waters ‘will make New Orleans unsafe for a decade’”, I’m supposed to believe that someone working in Worst-POTUS-Ever’s EPA is saying stuff that makes Worst-POTUS-Ever look bad. Might this be a way to get people to sympathize with forced removal of NO residents for there own good?
jg
The difference one side wants the feds to step in during a time of crisis while the other side would like it to be a part of normal life.
narvy
Easy, easy. Back on your meds,please.
But seriously jp, I’ve been thinking about this, and IT CAN BE DONE! Bring back ALL of the diplsced poor and put them to work on it with the Bacon-Davis act suspended. We are CAN-DO country, Dude.
DougJ
Hey, this thread is boring me. Someone spice it up. I need some entertainment as I am currently engaged in trying to use the words “intellectual merit” in a project summary. It’s awful. I need a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita, as a great man once said.
narvy
jobiuspublius –
I noticed that you’re quoting from British sources. They are really unAmerican, and they wouldn’t help us in the glorious war to free Iraq from the British Empire… Wait, I’ve got the wrong regime and the wrong country refusing to help us. Well, they’re still not American.
jobiuspublius
Sorry, that Kool Aid is some strong stuff.
That quote of Worst-POTUS-Ever, as rediculus as it is, is well crafted dog whistle for, “Now we have another way to funnel money to our cronies out The People’s pockets, especially out of the librul northeast, like kahlifonia.”
capelza
Can someone help me…I forgot where I read this. Very early, the Industrial Canal Levee failed and flooded the Ninth Ward, including the National Guard Amory…the water rose very fast and took out the communications equipment that the 300 or 400 Natl Guard had there.
I want to say that it failed even before landfall, like early on Monday morning but I am going from memory, which could be very faulty.
Anyone?
narvy
“Let me entertain you…” (Attributed to Baby June by way of Stephen Sondheim.)
You didn’t find that quote from the Guardian amusing?
jobiuspublius
Patrick
Hate to break up all the self-congratulatory backslapping going on, but the fact remains that if the mayor had put a bus on every streetcorner, there would have been some lonely National Guardsmen at the Dome. Uh, like his disaster plan said would happen.
Of course, the locals were probably a little confused between the published disaster protocol and the DVD they put out saying:
“you’re on your own“.
Of course, the racist governor who said Nagin had a hard time getting his people to show up on a sunny day (can you imagine the howls if Bush or someone in his administration had said such a thing?), was busy looking for buses. About three days too late.
DougJ
John, people keep saying talking about your students here. Are you a professor?
jobiuspublius
DougJ
Oh, Patrick, that’s some hard hitting stuff there. Whoa! I think we’re all reeling, some of us reconsidering our opinions of president Bush. After all, if the mayor of one of the most corrupt and backwards cities in the country didn’t have a perfect disaster plan, then how could you possibly expect our nations’s 40 billion dollar a year DHS to get to New Orleans in three days. If Nagin is incompetent and Blanco has said something racist, then Bush must be a great leader. You’ve got me convinced!
jobiuspublius
Not really.
jobiuspublius
Look! We just got married!
Patrick
jobiuspublius,
You’re ignoring the school buses, and that assumes only a single one-way trip. Take them 100 miles inland. Wash, rinse, repeat. If they had started evacuating when Friday when Governor Blanco and President Bush declared emergency situations, they could have made several trips per.
Yes, that would have required significant coordination. As we now know, the highly paid public servants that occupy local and state administrations did not posess that level of coordination, where it rightly belongs. Nonfeasance, anyone?
jobiuspublius
Otto Man
Exactly how was the Patriot Act going to help fight the flood? Was Alberto Gonzales going to take all his files on what’s been checked out at the public libraries, wad them up into sandbags, and damn the levees?
You think “Mallard Fillmore” is funny, don’t you?
Otto Man
Awesome. I wouldn’t get too attached to the money Bush is promising, New Orleans. Because as soon as the press coverage dries up, the money will too.
jobiuspublius
jobiuspublius
jobiuspublius
Some people just beg for an ass kicking:
jobiuspublius
Patrick, did you read the link I posted? It said not possible. Look, I think he should have taken his 376 busses, or as many as he could have fueled and found a driver for, and done as much evacuation as he could have. But, it would not have solved the problem. People still would have been stranded and he would get blamed anyway.
Patrick, you’re playing the Blame Game. Stop, you’re upsetting Worst-POTUS-Ever. Didn’t you read that link either? Man, I work so hard to inform you guy and you don’t even read. Boo hoo hoo boo hoo hoo boo…
jobiuspublius
Correction, the busses belong to the Regional Transit Authority. But, the problem is that there were not enough busses.
Slartibartfast
That could use some rewording, methinks.
Ancient Purple
The Bataan is a U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship that also has a contingent of helicopters that provide support.
U.S.S. Bataan
CaseyL
OK, true, but the mental image of a battleship doing overflights is really, really funny. Like something out of Eric The Viking.
Slide
Where exactly? Just drop them off at a 7-11? Where would you like the 150,000 citizens that remained in NO taken to? Do you have any concept of what something like that involves? Listen I have been in government for quite a while, there is not a CITY in the WORLD that could evacuate its ENTIRE population. Its just not something that can be done. There will ALWAYS be people left behind, even in mandatory evacuations. That is just reality.
Slide
Just to rile things up, which as everyone knows I love to do, here is a snippet from E.J. Dionne’s column today which is a must read:
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
narvy
My God! Think what they could do if Bush hadn’t put all of our military resources into destroying them. Oh, wait, he didn’t. Never mind.
narvy
To those who are arguing about the buses, what is the point of this debate? To show that the mayor was incompetent? To show that the city and state didn’t have viable plan? To show that the plan they had wasn’t executed? To startle us with new revelations of incompetence? Why is this important now?
slide
DIVERSION 101 FROM THE ROVE PLAYBOOK
narvy
Slide –
The Dionne column is pretty good. But my heart sinks when he talks about Bush recognizing that a new era is beginning and asks if Bush will “cling stubbornly to his past and thereby doom himself to frustrating irrelevance.” Is there any reason to believe that that this narcissistic, isolated President won’t? And if he doesn’t, is there any limit on the further damage he can do in the remainder of his term?
narvy
Well, then. Everybody should stop reasponding to Patrick.
narvy
Make that “responding”.
Patrick
Slide,
If you’d like to pay me what the Public Safety Director of NO was getting, I’d be happy to work it all out for you. Just a quick glance at a map tells me there are, say, 40-50 cities and towns within that distance. As I clearly said, such a plan would have required some planning and coordination, and these things sometimes require intervention (read pressure) from higher authorities like the governor. Such planning has been well funded by FEMA, had paid millions of dollars via grant money (for 2005, Louisiana got 328 grants totaling some $38M from a grant called Assistance to Firefighters.) Other grants were available thru FEMA.
So let’s review the facts:
1. Everybody knew the hurricane was a significant threat by Saturday. It had been speculated as early as Thursday night / Friday morning, after it had spent only 7 hours overland in Florida.
2. The city of NO and the state of LA knew the levies might fail with a cat 4 or higher storm, since they were only designed for cat 3.
3. The storm hit, without any significant effort to evacuate the city by the mayor of NO.
4. The levies failed, significantly flooding the low-lying residential areas, apparently largely occupied by lower income folks (I saw it with my own lying eyes.)
Nonfeasance. Failure to perform an act that is either an official duty or a legal requirement.
Patrick
Oh, and slide, DIVERSION 101 is directing the attention to who said what when and how they couldn’t have seen this or that newspaper or TV alert. The blame for the deaths lay at the feet of the mayor and governor, which is why they’re simultaneously blasting FEMA while decrying the blame game.
Slartibartfast
Ancient Purple swings and gets nothing but air; CaseyL squarely smacks the horsehide.
slide
Patrick, I’ll say this again for the upteenth time…. there is a lot of blame to go to the locals. I was one of the first to say that the Governor was doing a lousy job when I saw her performance on Larry King on day one. They failed their people.
Now, that being said, I live in NY. My city has been attacked by terrorists on more than one occassion. I don’t give a rats ass about the governor of LA or the mayor of NO. I am not counting on them to be there for me should my city suffer a citywide disaster. I AM counting on my federal government to do their job and do everything in its power to protect its citizens. Or as Bush said when asked if he knew of 911 in advance, “would have put out an alert and moved heaven and earth to stop it” Well, with Katrina they did KNOW IN ADVANCEof the potential devatating consequences and rather than moving heaven and earth, he stayed on vacation, took a trip to talk about Medicare, took another trip to discuss Iraq, had time to strum his guitar. LEADERSHIP.
Lets look at YOUR points:
Now knowing all that, I expect my federal government to focus like a laser beam on the coming disaster. Think of it as a slow moving missle fired from Russia heading directly towards one of our cities, only traveling at 12 miles per hour. Would the president go off to San Diego to give a political speech? Would the president be strumming a guitar as that missle approached? Would the head of homeland security be so disengaged that he didn’t know what was happening after the missle struck, only relying on newspaper accounts after he had a good nights sleep?
This ultimately is about LEADERSHIP. I fucking expect my GOVERNMENT to stop in its tracks when tens of thousands of American lives are at stake. And they didn’t. It was pretty much business as usual and they left the poor incompetent political hack Brown on his own. Disgraceful.
DougJ
The Bush White House has tried to make this about “the blame game”, about Blanco, about Nagin, about unanticipated levee breaches, about looters, about obscure federal laws from the 19th century, about the nation’s failure to “come together” the way we did after 9/11.
You want to talk about diversion, Patrick?
The bottom line is that no matter what went on at the local level, how “surprising” the levee breach was two facts stand out:
(1) FEMA failed
(2) Bush was still on his five week vacation when New Orleans was starting to flood.
What does this mean?
It means that Bush screwed up.
I’m done with you, Patrick. Your money’s on the bureau.
slide
Even the Wall Street Journal, no left wing rag, said that FEMA bungled Katrina. Some excerpts:
.
Patrick
slide, I’ll blockquote two of your statements, before answering:
.
I’m just not sure what you would have done differently, in the bright light of 20/20 hindsight. Of course FEMA owns part of the blame here, but the primary failure, the failure that first set the cascade of other failures into motion, was lack of proper execution of basic disaster management at the local level. Reminds me of the WTC special I saw the other night, something about the anatomy of the collapse. It wasn’t a catastrophic knock-the-building-down. It was failure of components of the structure, which eventually caused a cascade of failures. And perhaps the most fatal flaw there was lack of planning for the most remarkable and unimaginable events that followed.
That said, I guess I’m most confused about what Bush would have done there in New Orleans. Man a bucket? Grab a shovel. I’ll agree that his choice of management was not optimal. But even the esteemed James Lee Witt, under President Clinton, didn’t stop storms at sea.
So it’s all about preparation, and part of that is planning. That’s what the federal money that runs down from FEMA and other grants are supposed to go.
As for the WSJ piece, I’ll go back to my basic premise. There shouldn’t have been a need for that evacuation, because the planning was for some 10,000 “last refuge” bodies there. Should NO have planned for that 40,000, even though their primary tactic as published was that the evacuation would be a far smaller number? Maybe.
But again, disaster planning is done primarily on the local and state level. When FEMA shows up, they meet with the disaster managers from local and state agencies and everybody lays out where they are in their plans, which logically were all coordinated as to complement each other. If step 1 is planning, step 2 is preparation, step 3 is evacuation and step 4 would be search & rescue. (this is oversimplified, but stay with me here.) FEMA has very little to do with steps 1 or 2, although from Witt on they were much more active in assisting localities in the preparation / prevention activities.
With Katrina, FEMA gets there and steps 1-3 were all hosed. This is where the FEMA boots-on-the-ground failed, in coming up with an entire disaster management scenario real-time, virtually from scratch.
If you want FEMA to be 100,000 paratroopers waiting in place for the next disaster, to be prepared shove local and state entities out of the way and take over, that’s a different FEMA than the one that is currently there. If you want FEMA to have oversight of all planning and preparation, to have all localities and states be required to submit their disaster manuals to FEMA and have FEMA come out and test preparedness, that’ll require an agency of exponentially larger scope and size than the one currently in place.
Now for dear DougJ. If you’re done with me, you’d better do a better job with that pathetic skill set you’ve shown here. You can carp about “Bush screwed up”, and with some parts of that I might agree, but you cannot with any intellectual honesty draw a line between bodies floating in the water and anything Bush did or did not do. That line just doesn’t exist.
I have never said FEMA had no part in the blame. I have repeatedly said that FEMA is not what you wish it to be – the government uberagency that could completely take over a situation. They coordinate, and write checks. For the last decade or so, been much more active in preparation and assisting in planning.
Oh, and parroting the “Bush was on vacation” doesn’t befit any sort of intellectual conversation on the subject. If you honestly can’t draw a distinction between taking your family on a weeklong trip to the Wisconsin Dells and what the President does on his time out of Washington, you’re far too thick to have any hope for. I realize you think of him as a simpleton, unable to keep up with events outside his little bubble, but that doesn’t make it so. If he was unaware of exact events going on in NO, it’s because of faulty information being passed to him. From what passed as command posts in each region. If you think his being on the ground there, with all of the security and press implications, it’s obvious you’ve never worked in a command post.
Bush is guilty of not having better management at FEMA. Having better management of FEMA wouldn’t have produced any appreciable 72 hour results in this hurricane, because what should have been (pick a number) 500-1,000 rooftop rescues was complicated by allocating resources to an overstuffed Superdome and Convention Center.
Patrick
Ooh, ooh, here we go.
There, he took responsibility. So there you have it. Shall we burn him at the stake? Draw and quarter? Pack o’ hyenas?
Now lets see if the Mayor and Governor, on whose shoulders rest the responsibility of every one of those hundreds of deaths, take ownership of their pieces of the failures.
BadTux
I am puzzled as to why people who have never lived in the New Orleans area are talking about evacuating New Orleans as if it was something easy to do. There are three (THREE) highways that lead out of New Orleans. The metropolitan area holds 1,000,000 people that must be evacuated. The nearest high ground where there is food and water and shelter available for evacuees (it’s no good to evacuate them if they die for lack of food and water and shelter!) isn’t 50 miles away, it is *90* miles away. The traffic jams started the moment that the state of emergency was declared, and did not subside until 6pm the evening the hurricane hit. Furthermore, for the last eight hours of that, the “Contraflow” plan was in effect, i.e., it was impossible to get back into the city because all four lanes of all three highways was clogged with fleeing cars.
The city’s evacuation plan, which I have read (and apparently nobody else here has read), says that it takes 72 hours to fully evacuate the city. In the event that there is less than 72 hours notice, said plan called for a two-phase evacuation — evacuate to a nearby safe place (i.e. the Superdome), then after the worst of the emergency was past, evacuate to high ground. As far as I can tell, that plan was followed here just as it was followed in the last half-dozen hurricanes that hit the area.
Now, you can say that the city’s evacuation plan exhibited a serious lack of imagination. For example, I am looking at aerial photos of a massive freight switching yard in eastern New Orleans. It wouldn’t have been pleasant, and would have been eerily reminiscent of Nazi Germany, but those freight cars could have been used to haul people out of New Orleans as part of the evacuation plan. But we’re not the people who were on the ground, and they (the city government) made the decision that, given the resources they had readily available, the best choice was to go with the 2-phase evacuation instead. Really, I can’t say it was a bad decision — after all, the people WERE safe in the Superdome. At least for the first three days, when they had food and water. Who in city government could have imagined that the state and federal governments would argue and squabble for *FIVE DAYS* before bringing in the resources to do the Phase II evacuation?!
DougJ
I guess all is forgiven then. Once you admit you did something wrong, there should be no consequences. What are you, a liberal?
narvy
Patrick asks, in effect, “So what?”
1. It would have been nice if he had done this a few days ago, say when Brownie who did a heckuva job was removed, or even earlier. If he’s responsible now, he was responsible then. Why didn’t he speak out?
2. Do you think he really feels responsible? That this isn’t a damage control ploy?
3. Do you think there should be no repercussions? “Okay, I’m responsible for this monstrous failure, now let’s move on”? Personally, I think impeachment would be nice, but I think the probability of that is lower than Bush’s poll numbers.
Patrick
Narvy sez:
Answering 1 – I don’t know, perhaps Bush has had some time and gotten more answers from his replacement? I realize that all presidents are supposed to be clairvoyant, but I guess GWB was not in the right line that day.
Answering 2 – My opinion is that he feels responsible, and now he understands that which he didn’t understand before. From the shrieking of the media to the uberleft, he now realizes that he should have created a mega-agency that could produce those thousands of levy-closing paratroopers that many on this thread think should be the norm.
Answering 3 – I don’t believe you see the words “monstrous failure” anywhere in the Presidents remarks. Because he doesn’t believe in finger pointing, and that’s where the only real unconscionable failures existed.
Patrick
BadTux,
No, that’s not what NO’s disaster plan says, so you’d better go back and re-read it. I have:
It says the maximum acceptable time, including clearance. It’s from the mayor or governor ordering the evacuation, until the last car/truck/bus is parked.
Given that the Weather Channel was talking about the very scenario that happened even before the storm took land in Florida (entering the Gulf, turning to the North), and given that the storm was prepared for on the weekend (where most people wouldn’t have had the work concerns mentioned), it should have been plenty of time.
Interesting from the plan:
The storm was even beyond the scope of imagination of the planners. So how do you develop a disaster / evacuation plan for something that is way beyond the scope of what you dream up?
Also, did the developers of the plan thing NO immune from Cat 4 & 5 storms?
narvy
1. Not clairvoyant, just briefed on events of national importance in a timely manner.
2.My opinion differs. It’s hard to believe that a man of his intelligence failed to understand what was happening, unless he was not briefed and saw no newspapers or TV news for the first few days. And even after he must have understood, after his visits to NO and MS, he still waited until today.
3. True, I made that up. But that is the way I would characterize the situation. I suppose you would use other words to describe it. He’s been in office for four and a half years and evidently members of his administration didn’t know about his disapproval of finger pointing until this week. Heard on the NPR program Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me: “Bush doesn’t believe in fingerpointing because he’s afraid of poking himself in the eye.”
narvy
The Bush defenders seem to be quite willing to point fingers even after learning he doesn’t believe in it.