<p>Mini some people refuse to recognize the impact of the homeland security act…how it shifted the responsibility from local to federal. You can show them the section, you can show them the bill summary…but they don’t want to understand it because then they would have to admit what you and I already know.</p>
<p>I heard Bush will appoint a commission to find out what went wrong with the Federal Response…as soon as he comes back from his vacation. Actually this is as close as he has come to admitting a mistake and we should encourage this behavior.</p>
<p>Marite, the link seems to be difficult to open. I had to click on it a few times. Anyway, thanks for the CNN timeline. It demonstrates Bushs involvement: he declared a state of emergency in Louisiana 2 days before the hurricane hit. Then next day (still before the hurricane hit) he declared a state of emergency in Mississippi and ordered federal assistance. </p>
<p>There will be an investigation and there should be. I am not questioning that. I am questioning the blind hate that is hurled at anyone who is not a liberal democrat (especially President Bush and his mother, Barbara). If the situation is looked at fairly, there is plenty of fault that can be aimed at liberal democrats in this situation especially the mayor of New Orleans, and the governor, and senator from Louisiana. I agree with the need to very closely examine the failings of FEMA and the actions of the Director. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I believe there is a mentality among some that the Federal, State, and Local governments are there to meet our every need. We need to have some responsibility for our own lives including stocking up on supplies and planning for evacuation in case of emergency ESPECIALLY if you live in a city that is below sea level.</p>
<p>Actually, the governor of Texas looks like a hero and a leader for our time on this one. Of course, he can’t figure out how to fund public education in Texas. Maybe we should realize that people are people and can’t be good at everything. Good bean counters often aren’t great decision makers in a crisis. Great crisis managers often think the checkbook is always open and everything is a crisis. And just maybe, the government can’t fix everything that’s wrong with our little corner of the world.</p>
<p>I agree that we, of course, need to take respeonsibility. And I have to wonder why the Superdome or Convention Center did not have more capabilities to deal with evacuees for the space of 2-3 days–which is when FEMA is supposed to come in in normal time (however, in an Incident of National Significance, it appears that FEMA should be leading from the very beginning. I believe this may be at the heart of the dispute as to who should have been in charge). But while many should have left and did not, some just could not. The mother of the Jefferson Parish Emergency Services head was in a nursing home, presumably not alone in her incapacity and immobility. Donna Brazile’s family actually shows a range of behavior. Her sister, in assisted living after brain surgery, was clearly not capable of getting out on her own. But some of Brazile’s relatives deliberately chose to stay behind, for whatever reason. We can debate why that was so, and why some still refuse to leave. Because they’re short-sighted and stubborn? because they do not feel they have anywhere to go where they might find work? because they are short of cash at the end of the month? Hard to know. </p>
<p>There has begun to be news about New Orleans large Vietnamese Catholic community, many of whom were elderly and could not speak English. I read that about 300 were stranded in sewage water sometimes up to their neck for at least a day. As of September 1, there were still 200 waiting to be picked up, still waist deep in water.</p>
<p>People don’t always follow ideal behavior - some people stay behind because “it’s just another hurricane”. Others stay behind because family members can’t leave, so they stay with them. I heard one guy say he tried to leave, but couldn’t rent a car, and the buses and planes were all booked. So who knows. This is human nature.</p>
<p>The key is this: adequate planning needs to take human nature into account. A hospital near us had an emergency evacuation. This hospital had a child care center. In the emergency,guess what happened? Of course - all the nurses who had a child in the care center, deserted their patients and ran to take care of their own children. (Just like a lot of the police did in NO). I asked the CEO what he was going to do. He said he could have trained them better, or he could fire them, or whatever. But he said that he was just going to take it as a lesson. He said he would do either of two things - either move the child care center off site, so one issue would not affect both children and patients; or he would simply identify the parents among the nurse population, and train others to step in and take care of their patients should such an emergency happen again. </p>
<p>People are people, and if that’s not part of the plan, then it’s a bad plan.</p>
<p>btw- am I missing something? I’ve been looking at various write ups, and a lot of them refer to the President (variously: begging, suggesting, recommending) that the Gov of LA declare a state of emergency, and saying the feds declared a state of emergency before Blanco did.</p>
<p>But the CNN time line says Govs of LA and MS both declared states of emergency at 4 pm on Friday, while the federal govt declared a state of emergency for LA 12 hours later. Why the discrepancy between reports?</p>
<p>Hayden,
Blanco declared a state of emergency on Aug 26th. It is confusing because both WaPo and Newsweek ran articles saying that Blanco did not ask for help until later. The source for the false reports was a “senior Bush official”. WaPo printed a retraction but I don’t believe Time has.</p>
<p>I think you should all look at your city’s plans of evacuation. NYC is no different from others. In the times of emergency, citizens must care for themselves, at least for the first 42-72 hrs. I am in NYC, I do not own a car. I have had go-packs for my family since 9/11-and yes, I depend upon the kindness of my neighbors, many of whom also do not own cars–just like New Orleans.<br>
My plan and my family’s plan is to evacuate at the first possible moment.</p>
<p>Addendum-when I approached a neighbor of mine, an educator with the Adopt a School Plan that so many here are supporting-she went into a diatribe about how this administartion was to blame for the deaths in New orleans. Mind you-she owns not one but two SUVS in the CITY! I wonder how many “poor people” she would have transported out of NYC in our time of trouble. How many would any of you transport out? Makes you wonder, no?</p>
<p>Citygirlsmom-you must be very young–the energy crisis began in the 1970s. I used to live in SF -conservation was a big thing there and rightfully so -not just for the past five years but for the past 20. Good for you for conserving.</p>
<p>Regarding the earlier link bookworm asked about…RightWingNuthouse is a smallish blog that got overpowered when linked to by both Instapundit and Powerline…the timeline was accessible this morning, when I checked.</p>
<p>The ABC News report is too little too late. The professional Bush bashers have already achieved the traction that they need to lay the entire sorry mess at the feet of Bush.</p>
<p>I did find it very interesting in the timeline that was posted that use of the Convention Center was an after-thought and not on the pre-approved list of refuges that FEMA should have known about. Hence, it is not at all inconceivable that FEMA was not aware of the people there. Sure, it was being reported on TV, but, as one would hope, those involved with search and rescue operations are not watching TV.</p>
<p>Well, you might think someone’s spouse, neighbor, parent, whatever, might have noticed or mentioned it. And surely someone in the entire department turned on a TV; many are not on the site, many go home at night.</p>
<p>Plus, this begs the central question implied when the media is brought up in this context: how come they figured out that there were people in the Convention Center, but FEMA couldn’t? Do they have some sort of magic powers? Some special link to information unavailable to mere mortals? Gosh, it makes the media even more scarier than I’d thought! :)</p>
<p>I was thinking the same thing, but then realized that the media and FEMA have completely different job junctions. The media has the luxury to essentially sit back and look for stories to cover. The rescue people are doing just that - rescuing people to the best of their ability. It certainly would have been nice if FEMA had the resources to assign people to look for situations that had fallen through the cracks, but then again it would have been nice if the local officials who started to put people in the convention center had told FEMA what they were doing rather than rely on FEMA finding out for themselves.</p>