Hurricane Katrina

Its not a matter of hindering the Feds. I never said that, I said the Feds need to coordinate, discuss, and plan how they will get involved in a situation that already involves state and local personnel. I said upthread that:

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The Federal government’s job in these type of disasters is to assist local and state officials.

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You asserted this statement as inaccurate by saying:

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That's not exactly accurate. In major disasters, just as in wartime, the federal gov't has the capability of acting independently. For example if Cuba invaded NO, the Feds would not have to call the mayor or governor to see what is needed.

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Holmes, you are jumping around here without making a point. You disagree that the Feds job is to assist. Your point was that they do not need to call anyone, just go down there and get the job done, simple.Then you retracted that and said I was correct in that it would be irresponsible not to coordinate efforts. Now you are asking what could the feds do that would not hinder operations. Who said they would be a hindrance? Do you mean they wouldn’t be a hindrance if they just went down their without coordinating efforts? What is your point? Yes, he was discussing response problems but he was also criticizing the Feds for not being there already. His criticism is hypocrisy because of HIS lack of planning. Had the planning been in place, the Feds might have been there already. That’s what I was responding to. No Holmes, as I said upthread, the time to get the Feds involved was way back on Saturday when Katrina turned Cat 5 within 300 miles of NO. Nagin should have been on the phone with the Feds at that moment. Instead, he was directing folks to the Superdome for evacuation.

I tend to agree with Randman that a lot of the delay has to do with bureaucratic snags. I'm not sure about the details of his analysis, but I agree with his general point.

I'm sure there's a lot of 100% accurate hindsight being developed by the people in charge of these things by now, but it looks to me like despite the best intentions and dedicated work of the helpers, the magnitude of the problem has simply swamped all available solutions. A representative from FEMA was on the news this morning saying that because of the power outage and general communication problems, they didn't even know about the people who had been directed away from the Superdome where they were concentrating their efforts.

From my friend's post (at a tech company in New Orleans):

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Subject: The City is ON FIRE

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I spoke to some Federal Marshalls and NOPD. Morale is LOW. Very low. They're not seeing the military presence they say they were promised. I told those guys they can't possibly imagine how much we (the world) appreciate their dedication. I asked what civil rights the citizens have and the US Marshalls looked at me like I just fell off the turnip truck and chuckled. I asked if citizens can have guns for protection and he said if someone thinks he needs a gun, he should have already evacuated. He also said they are setting the city on fire.

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The NOPD wants to know where "the two active duty brigades" were that he says they were told were supposed to arrive today. When I asked him what he would want to tell the world, he said Everyone keeps talking about the military presence in the city, and then asked me," Do you see any military around here" in dusgust.

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We reconned our roof also, to get a better view of the city and took... I hesitate to call them "amazing" pictures. My city... it has been punched in the face and is on the canvas being counted out.

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And yes, that's smoke you see out of the windows. The city is under a haze from the fires. Smoke and ash are floating miles away from the fires.

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I was in a "life sentence" tier of New O's Jail looking up at during Waco. No different here. The look i s the same in red or b&w. My prayers are with the lifers of NO whether with or without foti. War is not al therE is warez was.

We have about 300 helicopters and 60 fixed wings working right now. We have more on standby but airspace is getting crowded and there isn't enough ramp space at the exchange points to handle more safely.

Hey LB. If you're part of the First Service, you have my full admiration. You folk are top notch and real heros.IIRC though, you guys are somewhat short on shallow draft vessels due to the normal theater of operations. What is being done (the supply of shallow draft vessels in the area should be fine) to set up coordination, supply and maintenance for those that can be found?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Apparently Lott's house was destroyed and he was on the waterfront in Pascagoula. A lot of old antibellum houses there, an inn that used to be a (slave holding) plantation (with blood stain in one room from chained slaves -- creepy)

Welcome back guy! Ya had us worried.Yeah, and I thought a day without internet service was horrid ...

welcome to the fray I will when he starts to fire people.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Actually, since the Dept of Homeland Security was commissioned that has changed.More on a new topic soon.

here's one: http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/...lure-of-leadership.htmlArriving back in Washington Sept 1st ...

You show your ignorance to the situation. Command orders came down 12 hours after the storm hit to reconfigure the aircraft for FEMA missions. You show your ignorance to the situation. The flooding changed the nature of the situation to where amphibious craft were required that were not in theater. Standard relief assets were in place before the storm made land. You show your ignorance to the situation. We are working 16 hour shifts but we work around the flying schedules. The longest that any one crew is down range is 12 hours. I will be back down range in 3 hours as of right now but that could change. So with the flow of the flying schedule and maintenence requirements, you have short periods of total chaos followed by longer periods of calm and waiting for the next mission. As down range ramp space becomes available, flights are imiediately scrambled to be there as soon as another flight is airborn.So we have time to check in on your spewing at least once per shift. Right now we are on hold until more police can secure the down range ramps. Can't talk about what happened there today. And again you show your ignorance to the situation. You are the quinticential Granola tye-dyed pony tail flip flop wearing wanna be. Even if President Bush could snap his fingers and make this all better, you'ld complain about noise pollution from the sound. If he had snapped his fingers and made the storm disappear before it made land, you'ld accuse him of altering the natural ecosystem to preserve his oil fortunes.I know it is a loose/loose situation trying to explain to you what is being done without it going back to "Blame George Bush". But you still haven't offered up anything other than your "Ashbury and Haight" spew about what you would do better. Anyone can quote Chris Mathews - but how about something more explicit so we can see just how much you know. A big change should start to occur within the next 48 hours but the suffering has only just begun for the city's people. The displacements will begin to take their toll in about 8 weeks when the generousity of the country starts to run thin and our economy starts to tank - which it will. George Bush is not going to be able to create 150,000 new jobs that pay 6 figures for each of the inner city New Orleans homeless, and it will be another feeding frenzy to bash George Bush. You show your ignorance to the situation. True you have not dirrectly dissed the ground troops. But other than the results being made by the troops, how else do you guage the effectivness of his actions in this situation? What else are you basing your opinon of his performance on? Perhaps whatever Chris Mathews is saying.Again, lay it out step by step in Granola tye-dye pony tail flip flop land as to how specifically George Bush should have handled this situation.

There's a RISK supply of them in several places around the country, but pulling anything out of a RISK Kit usually means maintenence. Ain't gonna materialize until long after Orleans is evacted.

A Tip o' the Hat from an old Army combat engineer, LB: you're way off base with the political crap, but you have my total respect for the job.I think everyone is looking at NO and thinking, "Whoa...what if we do have a major terrorist attack in my city, with bio or chem or nuke agents, requiring full evacuation, etc....this is as ready as we are?" After four years?Nobody shorts the first responders, LB. That's where the guts are.But HQ clearly had a serious case of HUT-B vision (head up the butt, for you non-Nam speakers).