Katrina-related accusations and the info behind them
POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 03:57
VIEWED: 7777
PAGE 6 of 11
Quote:Ah, I see what you meant. I stand corrected.
Originally posted by jaif:
Which has nothing to do with the statement you quoted; "federal help" has nothing to do with "national guard". The governor is the commander of the state's national guard, and it is the governor's job to call them up and give them orders.
Quote:I understand and respect your approach. However, given that this particular outcome was so shocking, I disagree on what constitutes a "big decision." A mis-step is a "miscommunication" that sent 200 ice trucks running around the country for a week, costing tax payers over $1 million. Detaining 40K people in encampments with no food, water, or toilets for a week is not a mistake--it's a big decision. It reflects something very, very wrong with disaster relief policy. For example, coordination and control appears to have higher priority than actual relief and rescue.
I think you in this thread, and the media in general, are micro-managing decisions that you shouldn't. I think we, the public, should reserve our criticism for the big decisions that arch over the little ones...I'm not going to worry too much about the mis-steps below this level...If mistakes were made by their organizations, then they should correct them, not the court of public opinion.
Quote:Most people seem to be focused on "failures" and what the government didn't do, because they were overwhelmed. They didn't declare this, or call for that on time. I want to see the government accountable for what they DID do. They obstructed the exit of evacuees, and they obstructed the entry of relief aid. If they were truly overwhelmed, and had relief and rescue as their priorities, they could have just let people help themselves and each other, and then jump in when they got their act together.
Furthermore, it appears that all three simply could not grasp the potential scope for disaster that should have been abundantly clear before the hurricane hit.
Failures require that those responsible be fired. Crimes require that those responsible be punished. My approach differs in that I believe a crime has been committed. Tens of thousands of the most vulnerable Americans were rounded up and detained for a week without food, water, or sanitation. We know who committed the crime: local, state, and federal authorities (it wasn't the Russian mob with the guns at the checkpoints). We have thousands of eyewitnesses. Now it is a matter of investigating the individuals responsible, indicting them, and trying them in court. Maybe it will turn out that they had really good reasons for committing this crime, and the jury will acquit them. Fine. But they need to face up that these were crimes that were committed and not failures.
The public needs to make it loud and clear it is a crime to herd up innocent Americans and deny them exit. It is a crime to deny a detained population basic necessities. Even POW's are governed by the Geneva Convention and protected by law better than Americans in a disaster area. Policies need to change. When you look at it from this perspective, it is no longer micro-management.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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Ok, let's take this a step further.
You quoted (I think it was you) a particularly horrific story of, essentially, police and national guard brutality to a group of people. Some lied to clear refugees from their front lawn, some others essentially robbed the refugees of their food and water and sent them from a safe place.
I grant that people should pursue that story to its conclusion. [Tangent - my sense is that the racism and horrible attitude to the poor that Mayor Nagin kept harping about was, in fact, primarily state and local, and that was the root cause of the brutal treatment.]
However, none of the above need have happened. We had ample warning of the storm; engineers clearly warned what would happen if the storm reached a certain size. What was needed was state and local leadership moving people north as fast as possible before the storm landed.
I can't explain how much it hurts me to watch corrupt politicians ignore basic science: New Orleans is a bowl, it has walls of X height, and many of those systems have not been adequately maintained. There's a hurricane approaching, going to be cat 4 maybe cat 5, and the walls aren't designed to hold that.
There's nothing left to do but run. But they didn't. They were moronic in the extreme, and every criminal act that follows they are culpable for.
Now I'll go one more step. If I understand the situation correctly, they had an option in the 70s; either build the superdome, or reinforce the levee system to resist a heavier storm. Note that this is only a partial solution - any engineer with a brain can come up with secondary and fallback solutions beyond pumps; e.g. ways to contain most of the sewage in case of flood, and so on. Or water stored above flood levels. Or fallout-shelters in reverse.
But they did none of this. They left the city wide open for a category 4 storm, and they have now paid the price.
Can we go after those crooks? Can the media press that point in other locales where crooked politicians shunt money from needed public works and pour it into rich people's hands?
That's where I'd like to see the focus.
-Jeff
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Quote:Good argument. I can't disagree with you here. I'd like to see those people accountable as well. (Damn, I'm just a judgmental bitch.)
Originally posted by jaif:
Ok, let's take this a step further...
But they did none of this. They left the city wide open for a category 4 storm, and they have now paid the price....
Can we go after those crooks? Can the media press that point in other locales where crooked politicians shunt money from needed public works and pour it into rich people's hands?
That's where I'd like to see the focus.
-Jeff
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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Pathetic, but it doesn't surprise me.
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050916/NEWS0
110/509160369/1260
September 16, 2005
E-mail suggests government seeking to blame groups
By Jerry Mitchell
jmitchell@clarionledger.com
E-mail sent to various U.S. Attorney's offices:
SUBJECT: Have you had any cases involving the levees in New Orleans?
QUESTION: Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps' work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation.
District: __________
Contact: _________
Telephone: ________
Federal officials appear to be seeking proof to blame the flood of New Orleans on environmental groups, documents show.
The Clarion-Ledger has obtained a copy of an internal e-mail the U.S. Department of Justice sent out this week to various U.S. attorneys' offices. Cynthia Magnuson, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said Thursday she couldn't comment "because it's an internal e-mail."
Federal officials say the e-mail was prompted by a congressional inquiry but wouldn't comment further. (I wonder which Republican cooked up this bright idea?)
Whoever is behind the e-mail may have spotted the Sept. 8 issue of National Review Online that chastised the Sierra Club and other environmental groups for suing to halt the corps' 1996 plan to raise and fortify 303 miles of Mississippi River levees in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas.
The corps settled the litigation in 1997, agreeing to hold off on some work until an environmental impact could be completed. The National Review article concluded: "Whether this delay directly affected the levees that broke in New Orleans is difficult to ascertain."
The problem with that conclusion?
The levees that broke causing New Orleans to flood weren't Mississippi River levees. They were levees that protected the city from Lake Pontchartrain on the other side of the city.
In 1977, the corps wanted to build a 25-mile-long barrier and gate system to protect New Orleans on the east side. Both environmental groups and fishermen opposed the project, saying it would choke off water into Lake Pontchartrain. After litigation, corps officials abandoned the idea, deciding instead to build higher levees. John Hall, a spokesman for the corps in New Orleans, said the barrier the corps was proposing in the 1970s would only stand up to a weak Category 3 hurricane.
Since 1999, corps officials have studied the concept of building huge floodgates to prevent flooding in New Orleans from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane.
Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2001 listed a hurricane striking New Orleans as one of the top three catastrophic events the nation could face (the others being a terrorist attack on New York City and an earthquake in San Francisco), funding for corps projects aimed at curbing flooding in southeast Louisiana lagged.
U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., has said the White House cut $400 million from corps' requests for flood control money in the area.
In other words: If the Mississippi had flooded from severe rains in its drainage basin, for example, it (the river) would have been a threat to New Orleans and its (the river's) levee system would be relevant. But in this case, the Mississippi basin is so drought-striken that shipping has been halted in some stretches (though you don't hear much about the drought nationally).
But a hurricane storm surge coming in from the gulf posed a completely different and unrelated threat. And it was those projects for those levees specifically identified as hurricane risks that were crossed off the budget by this administration. Those would be the relevant ones.
Please don't think they give a shit.
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Pathetic, but it doesn't surprise me...
Federal officials say the e-mail was prompted by a congressional inquiry but wouldn't comment further. (I wonder which Republican cooked up this bright idea?)
It could be the most nutcase Republican, Democrat, or Independent out there. Fron a lifetime spent in Civil Service(since the Nixon administration) I can state without equivocation that anyone in Congress can initiate an inquiry and have the Federal bureaucracy all over getting a response. They can do this despite what the current Administration might wish. Sometimes they do it as political theatre to start accusitions such as generated here, since the bureaucracy can't reveal who initiated the inquiry. Just more evil politics, IMHO.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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And the master of dirty tricks is ..... starts with R and ends with ove. That plus a few other well-known names. I just go with the odds.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
And the master of dirty tricks is ..... starts with R and ends with ove. That plus a few other well-known names. I just go with the odds.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
435+100=535 legislators. Mr. R+ove may have some influence, but it still takes a legislator to initiate a legislative inquiry.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Good God in heaven.
Quote:Well, at least they took his insulin. Let's give FEMA a big round of applause!
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/091605/new_doctorordered001.shtml
Doctor says FEMA ordered him to stop treating hurricane victims
In the midst of administering chest compressions to a dying woman several days after Hurricane Katrina struck, Dr. Mark N. Perlmutter was ordered to stop by a federal official because he wasn't registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency....
At the triage area in the New Orleans airport, Perlmutter was successful in getting FEMA to accept the insulin and morphine he had brought. "The pharmacist told us they were completely out of insulin and our donation would save numerous lives. Still, I felt we were the most-valuable resource, and we were sent away."
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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Rove is like Dr. Terwilliger. His thoughts, someone else's fingerprints.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Rove is like Dr. Terwilliger. His thoughts, someone else's fingerprints.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
Could be. But there's some Republican Representatives out there who make Rove look like a Ted Kennedy clone. Go figure the electorate. It just takes one right-of-JOhn Birch nut to start an inquiry.
Fortunately, the majority of voters nationwide have a bit better judgement in selecting their representatives.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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