Posted on 09/06/2005 11:18:02 AM PDT by getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL
There are good answers to this. However, there's no way anybody can extricate FEMA from this when the MSM was playing clip after clip of Brown with his daily confession last week that he/FEMA was "surprised" by this and "surprised" by that. To try and go be FEMA's apologist just doesn't make any sense. And if Brown didn't have any disaster preparedness experience prior to taking on that role, then FEMA has left itself wide open for critique.
But, beyond legitimate and illegitimate pin-the-blame on the tail of FEMA game going on: Any community that was overwhelmed by the winds & storm surge, that was the natural disaster impact. The flooding in New Orleans the day after the hurricane due to a 40-year+ unmanaged weak levy system, that's a human tragedy but not a natural disaster. In other words, Biloxi was not humanly pre-emptable; New Orleans, for the most part, was.
Let's face it, had the Feds been amassed by the tens of thousands, in Baton Rouge on Sunday (which was not part of any preparedness plan), ready to "attack" New Orleans on Monday, all that would have accomplished was to put more victims in the pathway of the floods. So what exactly do people mean when the feds should "have acted immediately?" Does that mean pre-hurricane weekend and Monday?
And why would they be storming into Louisiana on Monday when Shep Smith and other media counselors were telling us Monday night from dry Bourbon Street that NOLA had "dodged the bullet"? Wouldn't it have looked foolish for the levies to have held while the feds amassed in Baton Rouge when MS residents needed them more? Why would LA residents need to be "babied" more by Uncle Sugardaddy Sam than MS residents?
The question is, "Do MS residents believe the government has acted quickly enough?" I don't believe that the feds have acted any slower in LA than they did in MS.
Finally, this critique assumes that
(a) the feds did nothing in the wake of the storm;
(b) that it was their lead role to be the new "god" of southern Louisiana when all of the disaster plans didn't even have the feds as the lead response agency;
and (c) that private citizens can't jump in and be neighborly -- it all depends upon govt. hands. I like the fact that it was a local who commandeered a bus, loaded 70 folks on to it and was the first bus to reach the Astrodome (upon being directed there by authorities).
What? Were there no private citizens going up and down NO in boats? Were they all government-directed? Are we that dependent upon the government? God help us for substituting government in the place of neighborly compassion and the true God of the Gulf Coast.
When all the resources for the plan end up in fraud, graft, and payoff land, this "plan" isn't even worth the paper its written on.
A. Authority
As established by the City of New Orleans Charter, the government has jurisdiction and responsibility in disaster response. City government shall coordinate its efforts through the Office of Emergency Preparedness
The authority to order the evacuation of residents threatened by an approaching hurricane is conferred to the Governor by Louisiana Statute. The Governor is granted the power to direct and compel the evacuation of all or part of the population from a stricken or threatened area within the State, if he deems this action necessary for the preservation of life or other disaster mitigation, response or recovery. The same power to order an evacuation conferred upon the Governor is also delegated to each political subdivision of the State by Executive Order. This authority empowers the chief elected official of New Orleans, the Mayor of New Orleans, to order the evacuation of the parish residents threatened by an approaching hurricane.
It was a power struggle between local and state, with state getting pissed that Bush was sounding an "alarmist" tone.
Office of Emergency Preparedness and other (OEP) acronyms seemed to have a good deal of power here. Wonder what they did with it?
Good point.
Where does it say scratch Emergency Plan, go to biggest room in LA? In the OPs manual, of course.
Rush was talking about this today because he got a lot of email from people saying they had not heard they even was an emergency plan - and Rush spent some time on it reading a lot of the pertinent parts.
Plan?
Well, hell! the Mayor can't read...
What kills me (figuratively, of course...others literally) is that the Superdome was actually in their plan, but they didn't have any supplies staged...like maybe the FEMA recommended 72-hours worth or something?
Holy smokes, you are *so* right!!! And right away, my first thought went to 2ndamdmamas post (#12)!
"Access denied"...I cannot believe them!
Yup! Now they can't deny it's existence....Thank you!
Why would someone remove it? In this day and age of computer wizardry, it's not like one can get away with pretending something didn't exist on the www.
It just makes me suspicious when webpages disappear, and then I wonder what reasons were behind removing them.
Because, unlike FReepers, the masses have been so dumbed down that if the left says "what Emergency Management Plan"...and it's not there, they'll believe that the right is just making it up! Public edumacation at work again...LOL
just a bookmark.
I think you're right again. Just wait until the hildabeast gets going; the lies will flow faster and be more repulsive than the pumps and sludge in New Orleans. FReeRepublic will need to stay a step ahead of her.
I may need to buy another hard drive just to store all the stuff then....LOL
Lol! :)
Revisiting this thread, I find that the New Orleans
"Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan" is no longer on the city's website for all to see. Now that link leads to an "Access Denied" message. Hmmm...
FeartheLord noticed this back in post 89. It makes me so darn mad that they can be this in-your-face about pulling information like this.
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