Category: Old Dish

She took several days to sign a simple proclamation allowing doctors licensed out of state to help the sick and injured. Several doctors sat around for days waiting to go to work. No, you sure can’t blame the feds for that.

Here’s a fascinating first-hand account of the hurricane drill – “Hurricane Pam” – that Louisiana went through exactly to prepare for something like Katrina. It was a serious exercize, with some limited debate about whether the levees would breach. Then this:

There was a certain amount of contention, a few turf wars, some loud talk. None if it consequential, in the end, because of the single greatest emollient: FEMA. The Federal Emergency Management Agency promised the moon and the stars. They promised to have 1,000,000 bottles of water per day coming into affected areas within 48 hours. They promised massive prestaging with water, ice, medical supplies and generators. Anything that was needed, they would have either in place as the storm hit or ready to move in immediately after. All it would take is a phone call from local officials to the state, who would then call FEMA, and it would be done.

Read the whole thing. It’s a fascinating insight into what might have been done.

Some traditions never die:

Some holdouts seem intent on keeping alive the distinct and wild spirit of this city. In the French Quarter, Addie Hall and Zackery Bowen found a unusual way to make sure that police officers regularly patrolled their house. Ms. Hall, 28, a bartender, flashed her breasts at the police vehicles that passed by, ensuring a regular flow of traffic.

Normality is returning.

Professor Bainbridge offer his take on the Fox anchor.

“State and local governments are looking to us for leadership. They are looking to FEMA to tell them where are the holes in response plans? Where are the holes in our mutual aid agreements? What incentives can you provide us to fill those holes? I think my role is a very serious one. I think the agency’s role is a very serious one, that we should not just wait for someone to petition or request that we evaluate, that those types of plans should be evaluated (plans regarding evacuations) on an ongoing basis. It would be my intent to somehow implement the ongoing evaluation so we do not have to look in hindsight and say, gosh, we wish we had looked at that. We should be looking at that all the time to make sure they (plans) are adequate, and I will pledge to you that we will certainly do that.” – FEMA head Michael Brown, at his confirmation hearings.

Tell me: did the Bush administration need permission from governor Blanco to get orders to the U.S.S. Bataan to help and rescue survivors? Money quote:

The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It also can make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore. The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents. But now the Bataan’s hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty.

“Could we do more?” said Capt. Nora Tyson, commander of the Bataan. “Sure. I’ve got sailors who could be on the beach plucking through garbage or distributing water and food and stuff. But I can’t force myself on people. We’re doing everything we can to contribute right now, and we’re ready. If someone says you need to take on people, we’re ready. If they say hospitals on the beach can’t handle it … if they need to send the overflow out here, we’re ready. We’ve got lots of room.”

No coordination, so far as I can see.

When the Weekly Standard is publishing quotes like this:

In the parking lot outside the hangar sits George Lainart, a police officer from Georgia, who has led a flotilla of nine airboats over land to try to pitch in with the rescue. But his crew has been on the bench for two days, waiting for FEMA to assign them a mission. After making serial inquiries, Lainart is climbing out of his skin, and I later find out that his team circumvented FEMA altogether, got down to New Orleans, and stayed busy for five days straight. Though he shredded his hull by running over asphalt, cars, fire hydrants, and other debris, his crew saved nearly 800 people.

“FEMA was holding up everything, they didn’t have a clue,” complains Lainart. “They were an absolute roadblock, nobody was getting anywhere with those idiots. Everybody just started doing their own missions.” While opinions on the ground differ wildly as to who deserves the most generous serving of blame pie among George W. Bush, Louisiana’s governor, and New Orleans’ mayor, everyone I speak with agrees that FEMA officials should spend their afterlives in the hottest part of Hell without any water breaks.

Just remember: Michael Brown is still nominally the head of FEMA.

JPod sees no reason to broadcast images of the dead. Why not? My view has been that 9/11 should not have been censored, the beheading of Nick Berg should not have been censored, Abu Ghraib should not have been censored and the Katrina aftermath should not be censored. By that I mean self-censorship by wimpish media or actual censorship, as in Abu Ghraib and attempted in New Orleans, by the Bush administration. We are in a war. We need to see the evidence of the enemy’s barbarism, and our leadership’s incompetence and detention policies. What is Instapundit’s position on all these cases? I can’t tell from this.

The mayor of Dallas is useless as well, it seems:

In Houston, local officials complained that FEMA’s computer system kept crashing. In Ocean Springs, Miss., officials started turning people away from a FEMA disaster recovery center three hours before closing time, saying they were overwhelmed. “There is so much chaos and dysfunction going on with the federal government that Dallas can’t wait any longer for federal help,” said Mayor Laura Miller of Dallas.

Just another Blue State Bush-hater, right?

THE TWO CHENEYS: Even in a disaster, he spins:

In his first tour of the damage, Cheney offered an upbeat assessment of what he called the “very impressive” current response efforts. “I think the progress we’re making is significant,” he said.

Meanwhile, back on planet earth:

A Republican with close ties to the White House, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Mr. Bush had made clear that he wanted a change, a view reinforced by Vice President Dick Cheney’s fact-finding trip to Mississippi and Louisiana on Thursday. Mr. Cheney, the Republican said, came back with a progress report that was critical of Mr. Brown’s management.

Memo to the public: this guy will tell you anything.

I never knew that the late chief justice was once hooked on a prescription narcotic for several years. Jack Shafer reminds us – and of the double standard when it comes to prosecuting drug use.