Katrina: A timeline -- proof the Federal response was NOT SLOW

White House.gov; multiple news & other sources ^ | 9/3/05

[EverOnward]

wonderful job -- thanks for working on this

[heartwood]

I know you meant Aug. 26. But...

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Quelling civil disturbances was not the issue before the storm. It is now. In context of the whole article, these discussion have clearly been in the last couple of days not before the storm.

I really wish the administration had Blanco nailed to the wall on this one but they don't or they would have told us long ago.

Please don't go running with this one folks - you'll make us look bad. Wait a day and if there really was such an offer on Aug 26, you'll know for sure.

[Wolfstar]

Those that were not able to leave because they were ill, infirm, or had no means to leave were not able to leave because those responsible to provide the means to leave did not provide this nor did they have any plans prior to the flooding for evacuating these people.

Precisely. The Governor of Louisiana and Mayor of New Orleans had a close call one year ago thanks to Hurricane Ivan. Their response then was the same as it was before Katrina hit this past Monday. They knew there were problems with their emergency planning a year ago, and they did nothing to correct those problems.

[Fudd Fan]

Yup! I am on it!

[heartwood]

Wolfstar - you did a great job on the timeline, but I really think you are misinterpreting the date of the federal offer to take over - can you come up with another source?

[Wolfstar]

Print this out folks, save a copy of this to your hard drives and e-mail it to everyone you know.

Thanks for urging people to do this, McGavin.

[Howlin]

I think I may be wrong.

I scanned through it as I have had a bunch of phone calls, and I think it WAS last night.

It doesn't matter though, because she's making a HUGE mistake:

She wants it all........and now she's going to get it:


***Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1476866/posts
Governor Blanco Announces Executive Order

[MinuteGal]

Thanks for the superb work, Wolfie.

Too bad the White House PR staff will never wake from its long-standing Rip Van Winkle mode to do something similar and get it out as talking points.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Leni

[Diddle E. Squat]

nwctwx, do you know where to look for archived maps of the official NHC forecast tracks, and archives of the models they use? Would really be helpful to provide graphical time stamps of when the models first started converging on SE LA. IIRC, the 12z run (7am central?) of one of the most realiable models had shifted west to a LA hit, and that by midday many of the models were converging on LA, but not enough for the NHC to shift all the way to LA, so the 5pm (4 central) NHC forecast track was shifted only west to Pascagoula. Am trying to illustrate the big forecast shifts on Friday and the data prompting that took place long before 11pm, and thus the argument that "We went to bed Friday night thinking it was a FL hurricane and woke up to find it a LA hurricane" is a total lie.

Here's a post that states that the 18z model run of Bamm,GFDL, GFS all showed a LA hit, but his link is too a graphic that was continually updated, rather than archived:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1471043/posts?page=526#526"

[Peach]

I'm confused about it all too.

[LachlanMinnesota]

Thanks so much for the post...this shows that for every impending disaster or storm, we need tostart the recording fromt he beginning so that history cannot be re-written.

[gondramB]

I don't really have a time line. I'm mainly just referring to what FEMA director Brown said about only having three days from Saturday to Monday once they knew (or thought they knew) where the storm was going.

So my only point was it should have been pretty clear they were going to need to get food and water in New Orleans 7 days before it actually arrived in quantity.

BTW, I realized I was wrong in the day count. I was counting Monday twice.

The domestic security chief said the probability that the storm would hit New Orleans increased last Saturday, giving relatively little time to prepare before it made landfall on Monday.

[Wolfstar]

Is it me or did the Governor and the Mayor play politics with this situation?

It's not just you. They did. They still are.

[Wolfstar]

Thanks, Julie.

[Howlin]

I agree if you'll reread the thread; I read the article too quickly.

And do NOT lecture me, please.

[heartwood]

sorry, Wolfstar, thought you'd posted the WP article along with the rest.

Peach, was wondering if you'd come across another source that clarified the date.

[onyx]

We might be wrong... terribly vague, but it really doesn't matter. Total imcomptence on the parts of that paranoid mayor and the governor. The fact still remains that Bush made the right moves BEFORE the storm, and they didn't follow thru. They thought they'd dodge this bullet. Gambled and lost.

[Howlin]

I think it was last night, not last Friday night.

[nutmeg]

Thank you for all the hard work you put into this outstanding thread, Wolfstar! I'll ping my biggest list here...

[gondramB]

"WE are doing it now."


No problem. I was expressing my opinion about the right time to do it not telling anyone what to do. The left has been trying to assign blame too so I understand the motivation but honestly I don't think they are helping themselves.

There is a positive story to tell instead - that President Bush personally intervened to get the evacuation underway.