Katrina/New Orleans Timeline - Was FEMA Really Slow?

Sorry for the long post, but I just want to add my timeline. Let me briefly explain the purpose of this. I tried to focus only on a couple of narrow issues. In particular, the now widely-accepted “truth” that the Federal response was “slow” and that people at the Convention Center and Superdome were somehow ignored or abandoned. In fact, as the timeline shows, those at the Superdome were actually well-fed (I say this as one who has eaten many MRE’s in his life.) They also began evacuating within two days of the hurricane, despite the added complication of the floods. Despite mockery of Chertoff and Brown’s statements that they did not know about the crowds at the Convention Center until Thursday, the 1st, my research confirmed my memory: nobody knew about them until then. Finally, I just wanted a few more notes to make clear that President bush and FEMA were well aware of the magnitude of the situation, and took actions before the storm.

I have tried to stay away from the actions of Blanco and Nagin, for the most part, because to me, the biggest story of Katrina, the most shameful part of it, is the way that it exposed the violent, the uncivilized and the helpless. They are truly victims – not of the storm, but of decades of corrupt, bigoted liberal policies. Had more of them had a respect for the law, for private property and for self-reliance, we’d have seen as little of them as we have seen of the many thousands of storm victims in neighboring Mississippi and in the outlying areas of Louisiana.

It is not my intent to minimize the true human suffering of all the victims, even those who might have, with a little foresight, alleviated some of their own suffering. Nobody deserves that. Nor is it my intent to portray the Superdome or Convention Center as comfortable havens. Rather, I want to emphasize that the rescue and relief efforts have been a massive, Herculean effort involving many thousands of people, both government and private. The largest natural disaster to ever strike this nation had devastated 90,000 square miles, left hundreds of thousands homeless, disrupted communications and destroyed major roads and highways. Even as some chanted for food at the Convention Center, many thousands more were being plucked from rooftops and swamps. In the midst of this, some tried to make the plight of people who were already in shelters the central issue; while thousands of brave men were still trying to save people in true jeopardy to bring them to a shelter. To decry as slow and racist the Federal government’s response to this disaster simply because the buses took two days is a slander to the efforts of Katrina’s true heroes.

Some truncated links in the timeline above (copy and paste error) - my apologies - corrected here:

Friday, 26 August 2005

There is a plan! "'It's always a huge concern, because there's a very large lake, Lake Pontchartrain, that sits next to New Orleans, and if the hurricane winds blow from a certain direction there are dire predictions of what may happen in that city,' Blanco said." Source, CNN

Saturday, 27 August 2005

FEMA (yeah, FEMA)activates Texas TF-1, Urban Search & Rescue (Source) and pre-stages them in Shreveport (Source.)
But Texas TF-1 was not alone: "Seven of the 18 Urban Search and Rescue task forces FEMA has deployed were already in the region before the storm struck Sunday." Source, CNN By the way, these US&R teams exist for the purpose of "structuring local emergency personnel into integrated disaster response task forces. Source, FEMA.
Somebody is taking this seriously: ""There's about 36 hours for folks to get ready," said Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown. "Beyond that, it's just too late. I can't emphasize enough to viewers how serious FEMA is taking this storm. The agency has dispatched teams to both states." Source, CNN

Sunday, 28 August 2005

Sunday night, Blanco chats with larry King, and seems to know what's coming: "Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said that New Orleans could expect a complete loss of electricity and water services as well as intense flooding." Source, CNN
The city had told people to bring their own food and water to last 3-5 days.
Seven trucks of food and three trucks of water were delivered to the Superdome on Sunday the 28th (and another convoy on Monday the 29th.)
Last words from Nagin to people still in the city (we know what's coming - I'm sure we have a plan...): "New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin told folks to make sure they fill their upstairs bathtubs with water, and in case of real trouble, make sure you have a way of hacking through your roof -- so you are not trapped by rising water." Source, CNN

Monday, 29 August 2005

Bush takes this seriously - more seriously than most previous storms (oh, and by the way, Michael Brown is already in baton Rouge)"The president made sure the federal response would not be delayed by declaring emergencies in Mississippi, Florida and Alabama just hours after a similar declaration for Louisiana. Such declarations make federal aid available to assist with disaster relief, but they are rarely made before a storm even hits." Source, CNN
Nagin, Blanco - everybody - recognizes what is likely to happen. Everybody - everybody - agrees that the city must be evacuated: "Nagin warned that Katrina's expected storm surge -- which could top 28 feet -- would likely topple those levies." And: "'The shelters will end up probably without electricity or with minimum electricity from generators in the end,' Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. 'There may be intense flooding that will be not in our control which would be ultimately the most dangerous situation that many of our people could face.'" But, for the record, FEMA was there: "Federal Emergency Management Agency teams and other emergency teams were already in place to move in as soon as the storm was over, FEMA Under Secretary Michael Brown said." Source, CNN
It was more than MRE's at the Superdome: "Sunday night, the military delivered 360,000 meals-ready-to-eat to the 30,000 people using the Superdome as a shelter. Hot food was served Sunday night and Monday morning by workers with the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office." Source, Times-Picayune
CNN thinks there are only 10,000 in the Superdome. The roof has been ripped open, but we are assured that and the state of Louisiana has it all under control: "'It's going to be very terrifying for a lot of people, but the command center is fully aware of what is going on," Landrieu said." Source, CNN

Tuesday, 30 August 2005

The Feds have done a lot so far, according to CNN.
Blanco calls for evacuation of the Superdome, now without power, and with a hole in the roof, and with the city flooded. Source, Times-Picayune
In the first report mentioning the Convention Center, city officials are only now mulling the possibility of using it, and acknowledge there are many people stranded in the city (note: they still don't seem to realize they should be trying to get people out): "City officials said they might open the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center as a temporary refuge to shelter an estimated 50,000 people made homeless by the storm." Source, Times-Picayune
The National Guard was on the ground in the French Quarter (for those not familiar, this is a short walk from the Convention Center.) Still no mention of problems at the Convention Center - the biggest problem remains looting and anarchy. "National Guard troops moved toward the French Quarter in an effort to stop rising unrest in flood-stricken New Orleans late Tuesday as police reported looting, attempted carjackings and shootings near the city's main shelter." Source, CNN

Wednesday, 31 August 2005

"A caravan of buses departed the Louisiana Superdome Wednesday evening bound for the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, with the first contingent of the nearly 25,000 people who sought shelter in the sports arena." Source, CNN
48 hours after the hurricane has hit, and three days after the very first people took shelter there (more are still drifting in), the Federal government is assisting with evacuation of the Supedome. Source, Times-Picayune
Is it any wonder Nagin did not seem to see any problems with Federal assistance during this interview with Soledad O'Brien? And neither he nor the infobabe mention the Convention Center - because they didn't know of any problem there yet either.
Why wouldn't he be happy? FEMA had prepositioned massive resources, that were even then pouring into the city (pardon the expression.)
At 11:00 PM, the first report about refugees at the Convention Center appears: "With 3,000 or more evacuees stranded at the convention center -- and with no apparent contingency plan or authority to deal with them ..." Source, Times-Picayune

Thursday, 1 September 2005

There are already buses at the Convention Center: "A few blocks closer to the Mississippi River, hordes of other refugees hoofed it to the convention center, hoping to catch a ride on buses staging there. Others tried to thumb rides, and others were breaking into cars, some of them in downtown parking garages, hoping to steal one." Source, Times-Picayune
But reports of problems at the Convention Center are just beginning to come out: "Frustration and sadness were overtaken by desperation in New Orleans by Thursday morning, as tens of thousands of refugees outside the Superdome seethed at the slow pace of relief efforts, thousands more straggled on foot to a bus staging area at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, and lawlessness pervaded the parts of town away from the main relief efforts." Source, Times-Picayune
Michael Brown says he first learned of the Convention Center problems on September 1st Source, CNN
" Let me ask you about images that many Americans are seeing today, and hearing about." so asked the NPR reporter in the "gotcha" interview of Chertoff. (Transcript at DailyKos. But read the transcript - the interviewer is getting the reports on the other line froma reporter during the interview.
Here's how NPR reported it that very day:"But it has now emerged that people stranded at the New Orleans Convention Center -- about eight blocks away from the Superdome -- are in dire straights, lacking basic essentials and avoiding corpses and waste on the streets." Source, NPR
COMMENTARY: Yes, it this make Chertoff look out of touch, especially when replayed in juxtaposition with video of the chanting refugees. But at the time of the interview, he was being asked to comment on things that were only just then being reported. Everybody who says now that Chertoff should have turned on his TV and then he'd be as smart as us (or words to that effect) needs to understand that while we were hearing these reports for the first time, Chertoff was hearing them, too. But he was not listening to the media - he was being interviewed by them. If there was a problem here it isn't that Chertoff or Brown did not get their information from the media - the problem is that they did. Apparently, the NOPD was telling people to go to the Convention Center, but not telling anybody outside the city to come and get them.

Saturday, 3 September 2005

Everybody is gone from the Convention Center, 48 hours after the first reports of problems, three days after the first people arrived there: "With the help of thousands of federal troops, Col. Henry Whitehorn said 19,000 people had been removed from the convention center in less than 24 hours" Source, Times-Picayune

Here is a letter to the editor I sent to my local paper? Free to use.

By XXXX XXXXXXXXX
The President, 24 hours early not 24 hours late. Did the President’s early involvement save thousands?

Conventional wisdom among many pundits is that President Bush was 24 hours late getting involved in the Katrina rescues. As is often the case with conventional wisdom, it doesn’t stand up to the facts.

According to The Times-Picayune article published on 8/28/2005 [before landfall], President Bush personally called Gov Blanco and appealed for a mandatory evacuation. The relevant quote from the article is “Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.” Since this was posted to The Times-Picayune web site on the 28th, it is reasonable to assume that news conference was held on the 28th and the President’s call probably happen late on the 27th or early on the 28th.

According to Gov. Blanco, President Bush became personally involved well before landfall. In addition, according to a 8/27/05 The Associated Press report [again published before landfall], President Bush and his staff met on Friday evening [8/26/2005] to begin coordinating the relief effort. These meeting were held in Crawford while the President was still on "vacation".

The call from the President appealing for a mandatory evacuation is important in context because his call gave the Governor and Mayor political cover to make an earlier voluntary evacuation order mandatory. According to various media reports, the Mayor indicated that he had delayed the mandatory evacuation for legal liability reason. He said during earlier Hurricane evacuation orders the city had been sued by local businesses for loss of business.

So the call from the President and others such as Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center gave the Governor and Mayor the backbone they needed to make the evacuation order mandatory. We will never know for sure if the Mayor and Governor would have eventually called for a mandatory evacuation without the President's call. The only thing we can be sure of is that the president was not 24 hours late, he was at least 24-48 hours early and his personal involvement in what is a local and state matter might have saved thousands.

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