Katrina-related accusations and the info behind them
POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 03:57
VIEWED: 7777
PAGE 7 of 11
Here is more documentation of obstruction by local, state, and federal officials. New Orleans escapees are interviewed for NPR's This American Life. The transcript can be downloaded in PDF format.
http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/05/296.html
Can't Take My Gorram Sky 
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
OK. Back to one of the original accusations I was questioning.
Quote:
Why wouldn't FEMA let the people in downtown New Orleans leave?
The most likely source of this would be the incidents where the Gretna police turned back people trying to cross the Mississippi Bridge from New Orleans. This was on orders of the Gretna City government, who thought they had enought to handle with their own citizens. An example of bad judgement right up there with blocking aid to New Orleans so everyone would leave.
I can't find any FEMA responsibility for this. Anyone have any evidence?
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Hey, how about that Rita evacuation down in Texas ! Went down smooth, didn't it ?
Please don't think they give a shit.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:No, obstruction of exit from New Orleans was not FEMA. From all accounts I've found, that was local or unspecified.
Originally posted by Geezer:
I can't find any FEMA responsibility for this. Anyone have any evidence?
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Hey, how about that Rita evacuation down in Texas ! Went down smooth, didn't it ?
Please don't think they give a shit.
Reasonably. I think they'll learn from Rita as well. Probably the biggest thing I see is that evacuation needs to be phased somehow so everyone doesn't hit the highway at the same time and create gridlock. Either that, or build more highways.
It also seemed that the state and local governments were more proactive and able and willing to do more on their own. Now, what could be the difference between the Texas and Louisiana state and local governments? Republicans in Texas and Democrats in Louisiana? Couldn't be that simple, could it?
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
You must not have heard about the thousands of people too poor to evacuate who had to stay behind. I'm not sure how you missed reports of the chaos and that fact that tens of thousands of people couldn't get far away enough by car.
Had Rita actually hit the area especially with any force, the severe shortcomings would have been easily apparent.
Please don't think they give a shit - especially not Geezer, who loves playing politics with people's lives.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
You must not have heard about the thousands of people too poor to evacuate who had to stay behind. I'm not sure how you missed reports of the chaos and that fact that tens of thousands of people couldn't get far away enough by car.
Had Rita actually hit the area especially with any force, the severe shortcomings would have been easily apparent.
Please don't think they give a shit - especially not Geezer, who loves playing politics with people's lives.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
You must not have heard about the thousands of people too poor to evacuate who had to stay behind. I'm not sure how you missed reports of the chaos and that fact that tens of thousands of people couldn't get far away enough by car.
Had Rita actually hit the area especially with any force, the severe shortcomings would have been easily apparent.
Please don't think they give a shit - especially not Geezer, who loves playing politics with people's lives.
Is there and echo in here?
What I generally heard was reports of people who didn't choose to leave. It seemed overall that transportation was available for anyone who wanted out and was willing to make the least effort. Trying to evacuate several million people is never going to be problem-free, but it seems they got it better this time than for Katrina.
And I don't love playing politics with people's lives, but remarks like that make me love pissing you off even more.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/01/AR2006
020100712.html
That right-wing branch of the government the GAO concluded the Feds bungled Katrina.
GAO Faults Federal Government for Katrina Response
By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 1, 2006; 4:09 PM
Despite plenty of advance disaster warning and decade-old recommendations on preparedness, the federal government failed to exercise adequate leadership in response to Hurricane Katrina and was slow to determine the scope of the catastrophe, the Government Accountability Office reported today.
In a preliminary report submitted to a House committee investigating the hurricane response, Comptroller General David M. Walker pointed to a failure of federal leadership as Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast last year, with neither Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff nor any of his deputies stepping in to lead the relief effort.
The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, submitted its report to the House Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, chaired by Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.).
Because Brown's leadership role was "unclear," Walker said, "the efforts of all federal agencies involved in the response remained disjointed."
As a result, Walker said, "there were multiple chains of command, a myriad of approaches and processes for requesting and providing assistance and confusion about who should be advised of requests and what resources would be provided within specific time frames."
Of course DHS disagrees. Heck of a job, Brownie! Chertoff too.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Massacre of New Orleans
Katrina kills zero - Bush kills 10,000s
Cop-killer Bush kills 500 more cops?
FEMA ran Federal District of New Orleans for past two years
MP3 download:
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2005/09/6587.php
www.thepowerhour.com
Katraina was a Cat 3 storm, and levees survived the storm intact. Then FEMA jammed the radio communitations, removed the local police dispatch radio antennas, blocked access in and out of New Orleans, and Bush in his bunker in Waco ordered CIA's Blackwater USA Inc mercenaries from Iraq into New Orleans to bomb the levees and confiscate all the guns in dry areas of the city that still had electricity.
NEWS ARCHIVES AND LINKS:
http://geocities.com/bush_massacred_new_orleans
VIDEO: CONSPIRACY FREAK CONGRESSIONAL HEARING HEARS BOMBS IN LEVEES:
www.infowars.net/articles/december2005/131205Levees.htm
Quote:
"Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial."
-Aaron Broussard, president Jefferson Parish council, MSNBC, TRANSCRIPT Meet the Press with Tim Russert, VIDEO: "Feds criticized for slow response," and VIDEO: "She drowned Friday night," September 4, 2005
"As it turns out, the Canadians Pohlman met weren't the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They were actually a search and rescue team that had traveled all the way from Vancouver, British Columbia, some 2,800 miles away, and they got there first.
Pohlman: I don't know how they got here. It may have been on their horses, but they got here.
FEMA crosses wires with local officials.
FEMA teams eventually did arrive in stricken areas. But at least initially, in their efforts to organize an effective relief effort, the FEMA workers sometimes crossed wires with local officials. Maestri told us FEMA workers seized diesel fuel needed to run generators for emergency response.
Maestri: When we went to get the fuel, fuel that we had ordered and paid for, bought by Jefferson Parish, that fuel was seized. And we were told that FEMA had taken control of all fuel. And they were seizing that. And we would have to justify— go through a bureaucratic process to get that fuel released to the parish.
Phillips: So your people were turned around?
Maestri: Well, we were turned around and we came to realize that if that’s the kind of game that’s being played, when I sent the fuel truck back and I sent it back with armed sheriff’s deputies, because not on my watch. I was gonna try to make sure that nobody died.
Phillips: And they get the fuel?
Maestri: We got the fuel that time.
Phillips: So you were saying that FEMA actually became an obstruction—
Maestri: That’s correct.
And when his radio communications system was crippled Maestri says he was stunned to learn FEMA was responsible.
Maestri: My technicians reported back to me, “Hey, I know why you’re not communicating. Somebody took down your all antenna.” When we got him up there and he looked he said, “My God.” He said, “This is a FEMA antenna. Somebody disconnected your antenna and put theirs up.”
-NBC, "What went wrong in hurricane crisis?"
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9269337/page/4/
"Broussard hinted that he thought President Bush should be held responsible, saying, 'whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chain-sawed off and we've got to start with some new leadership.'"
-Newsmax, "La. Official: Feds 'Murdered' Flood Victims," September 5, 2005
"George Bush is on vacation in Crawford, Texas, taking the same August-long break that he did in the summer before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The appeal of Crawford appears to be that it provides the President with an opportunity to put aside all the troubles of the world and to focus on fixing fences and clearing brush. After all, it was during his previous vacation that Bush ignored an August 6, 2001, briefing document titled: 'Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S.'"
-The Nation, "The President's Vacation From Reality", August 15, 2005
"Bush just diddle-NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME