<p>Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn’t know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.</p>
<p>Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”</p>
<p>He did such a good job running that Arabian Horse Association that when it was time for him to “resign”, the negotiated settlement for his “resignation” included him paying the association $25,000 from his personal legal defense fund.</p>
<p>The organization subsequently went out of business as a result of financial problem during his tenure.</p>
<p>He was hired at FEMA because he was a college buddy of the political hack Bush hired to run FEMA. That hack left for the “private sector”, starting a company that got government contracts for disaster relief work in Afghanistan and Brown was promoted.</p>
<p>“BATON ROUGE, La. – Hurricane Pam brought sustained winds of 120 mph, up to 20 inches of rain in parts of southeast Louisiana and storm surge that topped levees in the New Orleans area. More than one million residents evacuated and Hurricane Pam destroyed 500,000-600,000 buildings. Emergency officials from 50 parish, state, federal and volunteer organizations faced this scenario during a five-day exercise held this week at the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge.” </p>
<p>The above is from a FEMA exercise that took place while Brown was in charge. They knew exactly what would happen and were still too incompetent to respond to it. Only the media and the public outrage managed to get the administration moving. </p>
<p>Rather than finding blame with anyone, I believe that the First Lady attempted to color all of this as a sort of blessing in disguise and noted this morning her belief that many of these poor dislocated people might actually be better off now as they face a new beginning. </p>
<p>We have stepped through the looking glass courtesy of the Bush administration.</p>
<p>People who were told they should leave or face death, should have left. The idea that parents would remain in the path of a Category 4 hurricane with their children by their sides is child endangerment to the extreme. The vast majority of people we see on television being pulled from homes were physicially capable of leaving. The fact that they chose to remain meant that first responders could not get to the people who truly were unable to leave. All of you are so quick to condemn the federal government (which has no authority to act without the permission of the State) yet you let it pass that the New Orleans Mayor did not use the 2000 school buses to evacuate those people without cars.</p>
<p>“Rather than finding blame with anyone, I believe that the First Lady attempted to color all of this as a sort of blessing in disguise and noted this morning her belief that many of these poor dislocated people might actually be better off now as they face a new beginning.”</p>
<p>That sad notation was actually made by the First Mother, not the First Lady-</p>
<p>“The vast majority of people we see on television being pulled from homes were physicially capable of leaving.”</p>
<p>1) define “physically capable” if by “physically capable” you mean able to walk out of the city, then maybe. If you mean "had access to a car, and gas money (at the least- since the bus stations & train stations closed, and okay, so you don’t NEED a place to sleep to just take off and evacuate, but it would be nice, and less frightening)</p>
<p>2) “we see on television” aka people who survived, and people we see. So basically anyone who was infirm and died doesn’t count, or anyone who was infirm and isn’t on TV because it’s not as telegenic an image doesn’t count.</p>
<p>3) When EVERY single raindrop is the storm to end all storms, it’s hard to believe the “mandatory evacuation” will be worse than what you’ve already suffered. Just like the Gov’t took a gamble with levees that couldn’t withstand above a level 3, these people took a gamble that this storm wouldn’t be worse than the last 10 they’ve lived through. Hindsight is 20/20- my problem is no longer with preparation, but with the mismangement and bungling AFTER the fact. (actually, I’m far too cyncical to think this could be handled well, so most of my concern is with the atrocious PR. Who lets these people speak without coaching them?)</p>