September 11, 2005

• Also: Mayor Nagin on Nightline (6 min, 8.4MB embedded Quicktime)
• I thought I'd summarize the different faults cited by the article; I haven't paid much attention to the finger-pointing so this was for my own edification: * Local parishes, who could not persuade drivers to do the pre-storm evacuation * Nursing homes whose written evacuation plans were unworkable * New Orleans' disaster plan which overlooked the issue of evacuation, this following $18 million of federal disaster funding * Louisiana National Guard who stored key equipment in an armory that would get flooded by the approaching Cat 5 storm * Unspecified entities which diverted FEMA buses going to the Superdome * Strong survivors preying on the weak ones (i.e. gangs, etc) * Lack of coordination at local, state, and executive federal level * FEMA, which (a) took a passive rather than active role with leadership and resources, (b) diverted trained rescuers into "community relations" capacities and held them up in Atlanta for things like sexual harassment training, (c) bottlenecked relief supplies, requiring red tape like "tasker" numbers to get in, and (d) failed to send pre-emergency teams into New Orleans even with NHC warnings of a Cat 5 storm and record storm surges FEMA indeed sounds like a world-class fuckup, but the other problems are quite believable.
• errata Local parishes = school bus drivers, not car drivers
• Indeed, rolypolyman. And not forgetting of course, the mayor, governor and senator, all the way up to the president. The key problem seems to have been that no-one was taking charge -- that responsibility must ultimately lay at the top after FEMA's role was diminished to that of a supporting one. It was of no surprise to me that Coastguard Vice-Admiral Thad W Allen took over from Brown. We had learned before this that the coastguard was the only agency to take the initiative to rescue people because their tradition is to do act, and not wait for bureaucracy to take its course.
• Let's also mention the failure of the President who a) either lied or was grossly misinformed when he said "no-one could have anticipated the failure of the levees". b) demonstrated an early lack of understanding of the magnitude of the disaster, c) failed to demonstrate leadership in the early days when it was most needed. d) got into a partisan squabble with the La governor of the federaliztion of the relief effort. e) appointed political cronies in crucial leadership positions at FEMA and DHS. e) actually got in the way of the recovery effort with his staged photo-ops and political damage control.
• I'd say that I hope Bush is at least informed of the opinions that he is completely incompetent, but I suspect that his parents thought so for most of his life, so he found ways to shine that on. I'd guess that Jeebus keeps saying "you've done a hell of a job, Georgie!" in his mind.
• I find it interesting that even ogrish.com has nothing, as far as bodies go. Ususally a pretty good bellwhether ...
• More in-depth reporting, this time from Newsweek: "How Bush Blew It Bureaucratic timidity. Bad phone lines. And a failure of imagination. Why the government was so slow to respond to catastrophe."
• I find it interesting that even ogrish.com has nothing, as far as bodies go. It does, but I'm not going to link to it.
• I am still taken aback when I see items that refer to the NY Times (or other papers) as "not impartial." Separate, please, an editorial position from reporting of news. In their reporting, the NY Times is reasonably fair and objective, hardly the partial point of view implied. In the piece referred to here, a group of writers studied a number of sources and prepared the report. Their findings in fact are pretty close to what appears in the forthcoming issues of both Time and Newsweek.
• I am still taken aback when I see items that refer to the NY Times (or other papers) as "not impartial." JU__TH M_LLER Umm...I'd like to buy a vowel.
• I'm shocked when I encounter the opinion that any source of "news" even COULD be impartial.
• Thanks for that summary, Roly. Interesting food for thought...
• I have a question. A boingboing reader wrote in saying:

  The reason the Red Cross is not allowed in, according to the Red Cross Web site, is that the authorities believe their presence would invite people to return to the city. Since it would seem the goal of this project is to demolish the city, then dun the former inhabitants for the demolition costs, then seize the property for nonpayment, then auction it off for pennies to Bush cronies and then give Halliburton billions to rebuild it for corporations and whites only, I'd say that policy fits right in.

  This seems pretty farfetched to me, but with everything that's happened in the past 4 years I'd be stupid not to at least give it some consideration. Is this plausible?
• It's beyond farfetched. I found nothing on the Red Cross website that suggested they weren't allowed in.
• oops Marty Evans, CEO of Red Cross, had this to say to Larry King, on national TV: "Well, Larry, we were asked, directed by the National Guard and the city and the state emergency management not to go into New Orleans" I'm shocked rocket that you would write the whole thing off as preposterous without a minute of research or thought. To clarify, I'm not asking for someone to "debunk" easily verified facts. I'm asking if the outcome that person on bb drew from those facts is possible. I thought there'd be laws regulating how the money was spent, some oversight, some transparency. I'm wondering if there's someone here with some knowledge of applicable laws, or how these things have gone down in the past. That oops link I posted- I noticed that a while later, and it doesn't give me much hope for how this will all turn out.
• To reiterate, holdouts are certainly being "encouraged" to leave NOLA. The question I am posing is, could this lead to the situation presented above.
• There was a report on the news last night (or the night before; sorry, I was only half-watching) showing an older woman who refused to leave her home. She held a pistol in her lap the whole time the police/military were trying to persuade her to leave her house. They finally acted when her attention was diverted, two men knocking her to the ground and carrying her out of the house screaming. It was horribly undignified, to say the least.
• I agree with orococo that there's no such thing as unbiased news.
• Maybe the guy with mad mapmaking skilz in the other thread will be granted magical powers and therefore be able to reconstruct New Orleans as a wondrous fantasyland based on rational urban planning. Or not. This is all so disheartening. At this point, I only believe the accounts of the eyewitnesses.
• I have no doubt that some people will be making huge profits from the reconstruction contracts, and that many victims will be further screwed when they find they can't afford the rent in the new buildings. That's prety much a given. I think, however, that the reason the Red Cross and others were prevented from entering the city, and the same reason that people are being forced to leave, is because the authorities in the city don't want anyone there but themselves right now. Probably because they don't want to be shot at, and they don't want to have to shoot anybody. Whether that's justified or not, depends on how much you believe the ugly stories from the first few days of this disaster.
• rocket88, they feared that the survivors would not want to leave places like the Convention Centre or SuperDome if the Red Cross were there with food and water. Which is ridiculous, considering the state of both places, but had the Red Cross been allowed in, with the appropriate security, some people who died due to dehydration and heat exhaustion may not have died. But there is no way the people wanted to stay - they wanted out. Coming back is another matter - I don't know what will happen.
• Some days I wake up and think I might have dropped into some alternate universe a few years back.
• Like around November 2000?
• tracicle: exactly.