Presidential response to Gulf Coast tragedy

Excuse me for a moment while I pretend to be a citizen of New Orleans.

What took you so long? You should have been here days ago. After making us wait so long, I'm telling you the food better be hot and tasty and the water better be ice cold.

 

Doncha know, Roger, we aren't to question our Federal Government - I read that right here on the BB? This is neither the time or place to question our government. We should all be praying and watch while they suffer, starve, bake, and thirst in the 90+ degree sun in front of our eyes and Never question this government because they are doing the best they can do, and after all, the President is only human. He didn't cause the hurricane.

 

Yes, the Salvation Army, Baptists, and Red Cross & media were first on the scene. Yet amazingly, FEMA couldn't find a way in to help people. The hospitals are STILL not fully evacuated.

The Feds had ships dispatched IMMEDIATELY to aid the tsunami victims. Yet they never left Norfolk for NOLA until three days AFTER the hurricane.

As of this morning, there wasn't a command and control set up by FEMA. Perhaps that has changed during the day.

The whole situation is utterly ridiculous.

And this nation is at great peril should terrorists attack multiple cities simultaneously. The terrorists are watching this whole charade of Keystone Cops with amusement and careful strategic planning.

 

Where was the Louisiana National Guard? I don't believe they are deployed to Iraq.

 

So they didn't build the levees to protect anyone from a category 4 or 5 hurricane because those are rare events. Even so, they knew this was a category 5 storm, they knew it was heading straight for New Orleans, they knew the levees wouldn't hold. They should have had a plan in place to deal with the detestation. They are acting like they were caught off guard and had no idea that this could have happened, they are now in the planning phases to deal with the situation, when they should have done the planning years ago, and should have been prepared before the storm ever made landfall. </font>[/QUOTE]Right and that's the fault of the Mayor and the Governor not the Federal Administration! </font>[/QUOTE]If the Federal Administration is going to be involved after the fact through FEMA, then they need to be involved in the planning with the Mayor and Governor. They are equally to blame at every level and across party lines! </font>[/QUOTE]And I thought you were the Anti-Government Champion! Guess I was wrong about that. </font>[/QUOTE]I have never claimed to be anti-government, I am for a smaller and smarter government. We see FEMA and the rest of the Federal government getting involved with this tragedy a week later, they are now vowing 10 billion to help clean up. If they are going to be involved after the fact, then it would have been smarter and much less expensive if they would have been involved with the planning from the beginning to help prevent the tragedy, than coming in late to clean up.

I would rather see the National Guard and the Federal government helping their own citizens than wasting billions on nation building experiments in the Middle East!

 

They were there. Greatly outmanned and out numbered. Where was their support before today? </font>[/QUOTE]I have found out since I posted this question that, 3000 Louisiana NG troops are ,in fact, in Iraq.

Evidently the 550 Guardsmen positioned at the superdome could not maintain order.

As for the other states, it takes time to find and call up all the Guardsmen, equip them and transport them to NOLA. Knowing the military,especially the NG, who are scattered out all over the state doing their civilian thing, I'm not surprised it took 3 or 4 days to get them to NOLA.

 

We have a standing army. The knuckleheads in the federal government should have used it. After all, don't the soldiers promise to protect us from our enemies, foreign and domestic? Looters are domestic enemies of social order and the peace of the nation.

 

CHRONOLOGY....Here's a timeline that outlines the fate of both FEMA and flood control projects in New Orleans under the Bush administration. Read it and weep:

January 2001: Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, a crony from Texas, as head of FEMA. Allbaugh has no previous experience in disaster management.

April 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daniels announces the Bush administration's goal of privatizing much of FEMA's work. In May, Allbaugh confirms that FEMA will be downsized: "Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program...." he said. "Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level."

2001: FEMA designates a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country."

December 2002: After less than two years at FEMA, Allbaugh announces he is leaving to start up a consulting firm that advises companies seeking to do business in Iraq. He is succeeded by his deputy, Michael Brown, who, like Allbaugh, has no previous experience in disaster management.

March 2003: FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level position and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its mission is refocused on fighting acts of terrorism.

2003: Under its new organization chart within DHS, FEMA's preparation and planning functions are reassigned to a new Office of Preparedness and Response. FEMA will henceforth focus only on response and recovery.

Summer 2004: FEMA denies Louisiana's pre-disaster mitigation funding requests. Says Jefferson Parish flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue: "You would think we would get maximum consideration....This is what the grant program called for. We were more than qualified for it."

June 2004: The Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee construction in New Orleans is slashed. Jefferson Parish emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri comments: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay."

June 2005: Funding for the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is cut by a record $71.2 million. One of the hardest-hit areas is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes.

August 2005: While New Orleans is undergoing a slow motion catastrophe, Bush mugs for the cameras, cuts a cake for John McCain, plays the guitar for Mark Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and continues with his vacation. When he finally gets around to acknowledging the scope of the unfolding disaster, he delivers only a photo op on Air Force One and a flat, defensive, laundry list speech in the Rose Garden.

So: A crony with no relevant experience was installed as head of FEMA. Mitigation budgets for New Orleans were slashed even though it was known to be one of the top three risks in the country. FEMA was deliberately downsized as part of the Bush administration's conservative agenda to reduce the role of government. After DHS was created, FEMA's preparation and planning functions were taken away.

Actions have consequences. No one could predict that a hurricane the size of Katrina would hit this year, but the slow federal response when it did happen was no accident. It was the result of four years of deliberate Republican policy and budget choices that favor ideology and partisan loyalty at the expense of operational competence. It's the Bush administration in a nutshell.


http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_09/007023.php

[ September 02, 2005, 07:35 PM: Message edited by: prophecynut ]

 

Surely that piece was written and paid for by Bush haters to make the President look bad. That's all it could possibly be.

Someone in this very household just told me, not 15 minutes ago, that none of this is Bush's fault. He is doing the best he can do. He's only human.

I believe I'll have Cherry, too, please. (Kool-Aid)

 

Yeah, LE they should be sent to the front.

(not ones in your household the ones that wrote the hitpiece) I suspect you can deal with them all by your lonesome.

 

I don't know if Kevin Drum is a Bush basher or not. But if the facts are presented accurately, then they cannot be denied.

 

The thought has crossed my mind over the past several days and this is something we will never know this side of eternity, but I can't help but wonder how many people made it to their attics when the floods came and laid on the 2 x 6's staring at the roof, with no hatchet and no way to get out, no water, no food, no flashlight, just lying there in the heat and staring at the ceiling and waited for our military to come and save them. Waiting...while the hot New Orleans sun beat down on the roof inches above their head, in the 100 plus degree heat, smelling death and destruction and sewage around them with each breath, listening for someone to come, waiting for someone to come, all the while hoping, hoping, hoping, all through the rest of the day and into the night, hoping, waiting for our military to come. This is America. This can't happen in America. America always comes to the rescue. Surely they will be here soon. Oh, God, please send someone soon to find me. Darkness, dampness. My throat is parched. I'm so scared, so hungry. Please, God, let someone come. I can hardly breathe any longer. It is getting harder to breathe. The military will find me soon. This is America. This doesn't happen in America. Look how people searched through the rubble on 09/11. They will find me. Oh, how I wish I could have a drink of water. I don't know how much longer I can last....things are growing dim. I can't breathe this anymore. I believe I'm passing out. I'm starting to convulse. Oh, God. Where is the Military....oh...oh...oh....

 

If you and some others had heard all the facts of the matter before you answered it, then we might have some respect for your opinions of what went wrong. In your particular case, we are noting that you have not been for the President for several years and we hope that you are happy to be on what looks like the winning side of this political debate.

 

Human misery and people dying, thirsting, and hungry before the eyes of the world in the streets of America in the middle of a disaster is no victory for anyone except the angel of death, cmg.

 

Many units of the Louisiana National Guard are in Iraq. As I hear more news, there seems to be a failure of communication overall. It was good that President Bush came today and I believe he recognizes that some things went wrong and it seems to me he is correcting things. I respect him for being honest and it is refreshing to hear him say that.