Originally posted by: Condor
Originally posted by: Darkhawk28
Originally posted by: conjur
Here's something interesting re: the Propagandist's 8/27 declaration on Federal Emergency Assistance for Louisiana:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050827-1.htmlNotice any parishes missing?The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn.
Like, say, oh, I don't know: Orleans, St. Bernard, Jefferson, etc.?
Let me guess... all the "blue" counties.
Edit: Don't see any apparent correlation to voting history, but these are the parrishes (said counties earlier, whoops) that would've been hit hardest by the storm.
WTF?
You think perhaps that these are the parrishes that were not directly hit by the storm and flood and ones that suffered less damage? Further, would you suspect that the real reason these parrishes are given benefits is because they are taking refugees and aiding the parrishes that were severely hit? Would you suspect that these parrishes are covered by other authorities than New Orleans? Did you check the status of indirectly hit counties in Mississippi and Alaqbama? Answer: No, because a through search for the truth wouldn't further your Bush bashing agenda.
Originally posted by: conjur
Seems the Canadians had no problems getting to New Orleans ahead of the Army and FEMA.
And who were the "U.S. authorities" that ignored it? Why the state and local authorities who were directly responsible, of course.The stricken parish of 68,000 people was largely ignored by U.S. authorities who scrambled to get aid to New Orleans, a few miles (km) away.
Sept. 19, 2005 issue - It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed.
The president did not growl this time. He had already decided to return to Washington and hold a meeting of his top advisers on the following day, Wednesday. This would give them a day to get back from their vacations and their staffs to work up some ideas about what to do in the aftermath of the storm. President Bush knew the storm and its consequences had been bad; but he didn't quite realize how bad.
The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.
How this could be?how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century?is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.
President George W. Bush has always trusted his gut. He prides himself in ignoring the distracting chatter, the caterwauling of the media elites, the Washington political buzz machine. He has boasted that he doesn't read the papers. His doggedness is often admirable. It is easy for presidents to overreact to the noise around them.
But it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there. Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it's mostly a one-way street. Most presidents keep a devil's advocate around. Lyndon Johnson had George Ball on Vietnam; President Ronald Reagan and Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, grudgingly listened to the arguments of Budget Director Richard Darman, who told them what they didn't wish to hear: that they would have to raise taxes. When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn't act without a declaration from the president overriding all other authority.
CONTINUED
In the Superdome. Did you not just see Meet The Press? Nagin was in the thick of things, even spending time in the Superdome.Originally posted by: Pabster
Where was the "situational awareness" of the Governor? Or the Mayor?
Originally posted by: Pabster
No, I don't watch MTP. Russert is a loser.
Nagin was in the Superdome, great. If he would have gotten with the program half of those people never would have been there in the first place.
The federal response to Katrina was not as portrayed
Sunday, September 11, 2005
It is settled wisdom among journalists that the federal response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was unconscionably slow.
Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1476).
"Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever during a dire national emergency," wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in a somewhat more strident expression of the conventional wisdom.
But the conventional wisdom is the opposite of the truth.
Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:
"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."
For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.
Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.
So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world history.
I write this column a week and a day after the main levee protecting New Orleans breached. In the course of that week:
More than 32,000 people have been rescued, many plucked from rooftops by Coast Guard helicopters.
The Army Corps of Engineers has all but repaired the breaches and begun pumping water out of New Orleans.
Shelter, food and medical care have been provided to more than 180,000 refugees.
Journalists complain that it took a whole week to do this. A former Air Force logistics officer had some words of advice for us in the Fourth Estate on his blog, Moltenthought:
"We do not yet have teleporter or replicator technology like you saw on 'Star Trek' in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your worthless communications degree while the grown-ups actually engaged in the recovery effort were studying engineering.
"The United States military can wipe out the Taliban and the Iraqi Republican Guard far more swiftly than they can bring 3 million Swanson dinners to an underwater city through an area the size of Great Britain which has no power, no working ports or airports, and a devastated and impassable road network.
"You cannot speed recovery and relief efforts up by prepositioning assets (in the affected areas) since the assets are endangered by the very storm which destroyed the region.
"No amount of yelling, crying and mustering of moral indignation will change any of the facts above."
"You cannot just snap your fingers and make the military appear somewhere," van Steenwyk said.
Guardsmen need to receive mobilization orders; report to their armories; draw equipment; receive orders and convoy to the disaster area. Guardsmen driving down from Pennsylvania or Navy ships sailing from Norfolk can't be on the scene immediately.
Relief efforts must be planned. Other than prepositioning supplies near the area likely to be afflicted (which was done quite efficiently), this cannot be done until the hurricane has struck and a damage assessment can be made. There must be a route reconnaissance to determine if roads are open, and bridges along the way can bear the weight of heavily laden trucks.
And federal troops and Guardsmen from other states cannot be sent to a disaster area until their presence has been requested by the governors of the afflicted states.
Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.
The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. The first ones arrived Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.
A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?
They are perfectly meaningful, particularly because, as you note, this disaster was enormous in comparison and the response was even faster than during disasters of lesser scope and damage.Originally posted by: conjur
Oh look! Metrics!
Meaningless in the face of the enormity of that disaster.
The date is ab example of bad editing, but it does not change the fact about the speed of the response.And, btw, Andrew hit in 1992, not 2002, and the FEMA foul up there is partly what Poppy Bush didn't get re-elected. It's also why Clinton revamped FEMA when he took office and put someone in charge who knew what he was doing.
Yes, post a bunch of links (for about the 10th time you've regurgitated this list C&P'd from KOS) and ignore the details behind why "FEMA" was barring entry (Because the state DHS, headed by Blanco, requested FEMA to refuse entry to those groups). Standard superficial conjur fare.FEMA's "accomplishments"
FEMA won?t accept Amtrak?s help in evacuations
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/84aa35cc-1da8-11da-b40b-00000e2511c8.html
FEMA turns away experienced firefighters
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/5/105538/7048
FEMA turns back Wal-Mart supply trucks
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/natio...nalspecial/05blame.html?ex=1283572800&
FEMA prevents Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/natio...nalspecial/05blame.html?ex=1283572800&
FEMA won?t let Red Cross deliver food
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm
FEMA bars morticians from entering New Orleans
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?news...&;BRD=1817&PAG=461&dept_id=68561&rfi=6
FEMA blocks 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering aid
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/3/171718/0826
FEMA fails to utilize Navy ship with 600-bed hospital on board
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati...9040369sep04,1,4144825.story?ctrack=1&
FEMA to Chicago: Send just one truck
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca...aley,1,2011979.story?coll=chi-news-hed
FEMA turns away generators
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea.html
FEMA: ?First Responders Urged Not To Respond?
http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=18470
Maybe the links that you all begin with "FEMA prevents, FEMA turns away, FEMA bars, FEMA blocks" sway the ignorarnt simpletons that look any further into the issue. Those that have looked further and know some of the facts behind those stories know what a bunch of bogus crap your list is.Originally posted by: conjur
Look at TrollsLikeChicken flipping the tables. Yeah...the state kept FEMA out. :roll:
Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Maybe the links that you all begin with "FEMA prevents, FEMA turns away, FEMA bars, FEMA blocks" sway the ignorarnt simpletons that look any further into the issue. Those that have looked further and know some of the facts behind those stories know what a bunch of bogus crap your list is.Originally posted by: conjur
Look at TrollsLikeChicken flipping the tables. Yeah...the state kept FEMA out. :roll:
Originally posted by: conjur
:roll:
Then I recommend you catch the transcript once it's posted. The mayor did admit there are some things he could have done better but given his situation, he was expecting a lot of help from outside.
As for the Gov. the mayor came off as critical of her and she's the one we know the least about at this point. My guess is there was a lot of wrangling between the Feds and the Gov. as to who would maintain control.
Go read the Meet The Press transcript I quoted above. You're the simpleton to which TrollsLikeChicken referred.Originally posted by: ShadesOfGrey
Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Maybe the links that you all begin with "FEMA prevents, FEMA turns away, FEMA bars, FEMA blocks" sway the ignorarnt simpletons that look any further into the issue. Those that have looked further and know some of the facts behind those stories know what a bunch of bogus crap your list is.Originally posted by: conjur
Look at TrollsLikeChicken flipping the tables. Yeah...the state kept FEMA out. :roll:
So true.
Conjur likes to make the claim that it was FEMA doing the turning away but that is contradicted by Amtrak.
In fact, while the last regularly scheduled train out of town had left a few hours earlier, Amtrak had decided to run a "dead-head" train that evening to move equipment out of the city. It was headed for high ground in Macomb, Miss., and it had room for several hundred passengers. "We offered the city the opportunity to take evacuees out of harm's way," said Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black. "The city declined."
Oops, guess in kos's quest to blame Bush and conjur's rush to parrot it - they didn't seem to rely on facts. BTW, the BATAAN was heavily used too.
More ignorant drivel from one of P&N latest RNC Team Leader trolls.Originally posted by: ShadesOfGrey
Originally posted by: conjur
:roll:
Then I recommend you catch the transcript once it's posted. The mayor did admit there are some things he could have done better but given his situation, he was expecting a lot of help from outside.
As for the Gov. the mayor came off as critical of her and she's the one we know the least about at this point. My guess is there was a lot of wrangling between the Feds and the Gov. as to who would maintain control.
Exact, you mean your agenda is to push blame upward - we already knew that.
The response is from the ground up, and in this case there was little coordination, communication, and deciciveness from the state and locals.
Follow half-assed evac plan? - Nope
*Buses* No drivers? Did he even ask people to drive them?
Guard troops - Did you catch the soundbite of her statement off-camera? It's floating out there. She dropped the ball.
One thing you might have right is that there was wrangling, but it looks like there was a power struggle(or rather vacuum due to assuming the other was doing their job) at the state and local level. Yes, the Feds are at fault in the last part too - damn them for thinking that the state and local responses would be something more than abysmal.
Originally posted by: conjur
Go read the Meet The Press transcript I quoted above. You're the simpleton to which TrollsLikeChicken referred.Originally posted by: ShadesOfGrey
Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Maybe the links that you all begin with "FEMA prevents, FEMA turns away, FEMA bars, FEMA blocks" sway the ignorarnt simpletons that look any further into the issue. Those that have looked further and know some of the facts behind those stories know what a bunch of bogus crap your list is.Originally posted by: conjur
Look at TrollsLikeChicken flipping the tables. Yeah...the state kept FEMA out. :roll:
So true.
Conjur likes to make the claim that it was FEMA doing the turning away but that is contradicted by Amtrak.
In fact, while the last regularly scheduled train out of town had left a few hours earlier, Amtrak had decided to run a "dead-head" train that evening to move equipment out of the city. It was headed for high ground in Macomb, Miss., and it had room for several hundred passengers. "We offered the city the opportunity to take evacuees out of harm's way," said Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black. "The city declined."
Oops, guess in kos's quest to blame Bush and conjur's rush to parrot it - they didn't seem to rely on facts. BTW, the BATAAN was heavily used too.
Originally posted by: shrumpage
The federal response to Katrina was not as portrayed
Sunday, September 11, 2005
It is settled wisdom among journalists that the federal response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was unconscionably slow.
Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1476).
"Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever during a dire national emergency," wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in a somewhat more strident expression of the conventional wisdom.
But the conventional wisdom is the opposite of the truth.
Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:
"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."
For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.
Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.
So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world history.
I write this column a week and a day after the main levee protecting New Orleans breached. In the course of that week:
More than 32,000 people have been rescued, many plucked from rooftops by Coast Guard helicopters.
The Army Corps of Engineers has all but repaired the breaches and begun pumping water out of New Orleans.
Shelter, food and medical care have been provided to more than 180,000 refugees.
Journalists complain that it took a whole week to do this. A former Air Force logistics officer had some words of advice for us in the Fourth Estate on his blog, Moltenthought:
"We do not yet have teleporter or replicator technology like you saw on 'Star Trek' in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your worthless communications degree while the grown-ups actually engaged in the recovery effort were studying engineering.
"The United States military can wipe out the Taliban and the Iraqi Republican Guard far more swiftly than they can bring 3 million Swanson dinners to an underwater city through an area the size of Great Britain which has no power, no working ports or airports, and a devastated and impassable road network.
"You cannot speed recovery and relief efforts up by prepositioning assets (in the affected areas) since the assets are endangered by the very storm which destroyed the region.
"No amount of yelling, crying and mustering of moral indignation will change any of the facts above."
"You cannot just snap your fingers and make the military appear somewhere," van Steenwyk said.
Guardsmen need to receive mobilization orders; report to their armories; draw equipment; receive orders and convoy to the disaster area. Guardsmen driving down from Pennsylvania or Navy ships sailing from Norfolk can't be on the scene immediately.
Relief efforts must be planned. Other than prepositioning supplies near the area likely to be afflicted (which was done quite efficiently), this cannot be done until the hurricane has struck and a damage assessment can be made. There must be a route reconnaissance to determine if roads are open, and bridges along the way can bear the weight of heavily laden trucks.
And federal troops and Guardsmen from other states cannot be sent to a disaster area until their presence has been requested by the governors of the afflicted states.
Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.
The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. The first ones arrived Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.
A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?
Originally posted by: conjur
Look at TrollsLikeChicken flipping the tables. Yeah...the state kept FEMA out. :roll:
If you watched it then you know Mayor Nagin was never made aware of the offer of Amtrak.Originally posted by: ShadesOfGrey
I watched it live. Did you read my link? Not so good with the facts are you. Ofcourse we all know it really isn't your fault since it's just a kos parrot job.
Oh, and I like your response to my other post - nothing but vacuous drivel.
Originally posted by: conjur
Meet The Press Transcript