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Member (Idle past 1426 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Department Of Homeland Security Inaction At the Top | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1365 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Looters. Let's shift the discussion to looters. That usually works. honestly, f' capitalism for a week or two. let them loot. let them take tv's too. there are vastly more important things than the integrity of businesses that under 4 feet of water.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1365 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
You confuse a FEMA mission statement with operational procedures. “Reducing the likelihood or severity of possible disasters” is a very broad statement that represents the over arching philosophy of the organization. It is not meant to be operational guidance as to specific local actions. oh. i see. it's just bullshit business-ese. it doesn't actually MEAN anything. they're not really supposed to work to achieve that mission...
You use the term “responsible” as if that covers all meanings and contexts for its use. Day to day operations of the levee system is performed by the Orleans levee district. The Corps of Engineers are involved in longer range projects not included in routine day to day operations. and fema, as part of that over-arching philosophy, is supposed to make sure that they are stable.
The decisions made in 1996 to reinforce the levee system to Cat 3 at a cost of $750 million was made by the levee board and the Corps of Engineers, (COE). i hate to break this to you, but the levee system was DESIGNED to withstand a cat3 in the first place. back in the 30's it was a cat3 that flooded nola the height of the lake that prompted them to build the levees in the first place. if they were being reinforced, it was probably repairs.
FEMA was not directly involved in making those decisions. they should have been. that's the point.
Many organizations knew that a Cat 4 or 5 hitting NOLA was only a matter of time. The levee board knew, the COE knew and FEMA knew. But so what? Everyone knew a Cat 3 improvement would not suffice, but they all bowed to the political reality that Cat 5 protections would be prohibitively expensive. that's called "bad economics." what do you think it's going to cost to repair the levees now? what do you think it's going to cost to drain the city? to rebuild it? to jump-start industry? to pay families to help replace their losses? if they knew that it was only a matter of time, and they knew what the repair would cost, then cutting corners was an economically retarded decision. saving a few dollars here to have to pay billions in "only a matter of time" is not smart any way you look at it. and we're talking strict economics here. nevermind the HUMAN cost.
Should FEMA have taken up the drumbeat and put reinforcement of the levee system in NOLA at a cost of approximately $14 billlion above all other funding priorities? in retrospect, honestly, what do you think?
FEMA’s budget is around $7 Billion. Are they supposed to spend 2 years worth of their annual budget on one project in south Louisiana? Of course not. Or for that matter, should DHS with an annual budget of $40 Billion spend 35% of that on one project in south Louisiana? Of course not. care to tell me what else they're doing? at this point it's like paying for life insurance that's only valid for as long as you live. should the dhs spend some of that 40 billion? yes. they should. that's their job. that's why they have a 40 billion dollar budget. to protect against threats to the homeland security -- like hurricanes.
In hindsight, should they have spent that money? Yes they should have, but only in hindsight. i'm glad you partially agree. maybe you fully agree, and you just don't realize it: you just said that "Many organizations knew that a Cat 4 or 5 hitting NOLA was only a matter of time." in otherwords, they had FOREsight too.
It's a cold hard fact, we simply cannot prepare for them all. no, you can't. i'm not asking for a miracle here. i'm just asking for a good set of plans. i'm just asking for them not to take a week to get off their asses and do something.
And you make the false assumption that my current address in Kansas has been the same since my birth. I’m a relatively recent transplant to Kansas having lived the first 20 years of my life in Louisiana. I’ve been through 4 hurricanes including living through the eye of Betsy in 1965. My sister and her family are homeless due to Katrina. I’ve lived through the madhouse you describe and I am intimately familiar with New Orleans, so yes, I do understand exactly what you are speaking of. I understand it more so than you do. thn you should be familiar with why fema needs to be there BEFORE a storm of a certain magnitude, if only to keep public order.
I'm not defending FEMA. They were negligent in being too late responding after it was apparent local officals couldn't handle the situation. I've called for Michael Brown to be fired. The difference is between prevention and reaction. I don't hold FEMA responsible for prevention, (specifically the NOLA soup bowl). I do hold them responsible for their delayed reaction. i hold them responsible for both, because their mission statement says they are responsibel for both. so is the dhs, btw. and yes, michael brown should step down, if only for such ignorant and nasty remarks as blaming the victims. that's absolutely uncalled for.
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jar Member (Idle past 415 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Fema's annual budget = approximately seven days budget for the Iraq War.
Seven Days budget. Approximately 1,500,000 refugees. Seven Days budget. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1365 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
oop, jar. way to bring up the elephant.
edit: ok, let's shift the blame up a notch on the ladder then, shall we? who makes the budgets? This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 09-05-2005 09:21 PM
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1426 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
and the flip side is that if you cannot economically afford to make the city safe from a cat4 plus hurricane, that then you look at mandatory enforced evacuation to a pre-arranged location and by a pre-arranged plan, using national guard to implement. {abe} you move them by neighborhoods: cuba has a good system that moves doctors with patients -- this has been done elsewhere and it ain't rocket science.{/abe}
the problem is not that DHS\FEMA did nothing about ensuring the safety of the city before hand to protect it from a cat 5 storm but they also had NO other plan to deal with the eventuality. I can forgive one if the other is done. It wasn't. This message has been edited by RAZD, 09*05*2005 09:24 PM we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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berberry Inactive Member |
From one of my favorites: Keith Olbermann! Everybody should make time at 8pm ET weekdays for this, the best show on Cable News.
Did you know that the city of Louisiana was flooded? I didn't either, until Michael Chertoff told me so. Oh, and the line about George Bush as a 21st century Marie Antoinette: classic Olbermann! He writes his own stuff, you know. This is one for the ages. "I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005
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Nuggin Member (Idle past 2514 days) Posts: 2965 From: Los Angeles, CA USA Joined: |
that's called "bad economics." what do you think it's going to cost to repair the levees now? what do you think it's going to cost to drain the city? to rebuild it? to jump-start industry? to pay families to help replace their losses? Well, that's an interesting question, but I think it's a lot easier to get money through Congress to fix a problem than prevent it. Additionally, I wonder who would have had to pay for upgrades to teh levee system if the nola wanted it? Would it have come out of their coffers? Then there's this question -- is it even possible to design a levee system that'll protect nola from a Cat5? It may be one of those situations where a Cat3 protection is 250million, cat4 is 1.3billion, cat5 is 2.8 trillion. I'm TOTALLY making up those numbers, but you understand where I'm going with this. I live in Los Angeles. We COULD protect every building in the city from a 10.0 earthquake, but what would it cost to do that? Prevention may not be the answer, however, it's ridiculous that we didn't have people on the ground faster, that we didn't have everyone out of Nola because they didn't have cars. And, Bush was on VACATION! Bush has been president for 5 years. How many goddamn vacations does he need? He takes a month off twice a year?!?! The last vacation I got was the summer before he was elected, and that was my damn honeymoon. I'm sorry, but if you want that job, you don't get to take months off. Especially when you KNOW a disaster is headed right at the south cost. I bet it comes out later there was an intelligence briefing that was ignored: "Katrina determined to strike the US"
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jar Member (Idle past 415 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I don't care a damn bit about who was at fault or who should be blamed. That is in the past and frankly, I don't think we should waste many more resources trying to lay blame.
My point is now, and has been since before we invaded Iraq, before 9-11, is that we are not using our resources in a way that increases our security. Increasing National Security. Would having a plan and capabilities to evacuate an area threatened by natural disaster help National Security? Would having the budget to make improvements to essential infrastructure help National Security? Would those two things also have use in cases of terrorist threats to US Cities? It's your tax dollars at work. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1426 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
maybe congress should arrange a permanent vacation?
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1365 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
and the flip side is that if you cannot economically afford to make the city safe from a cat4 plus hurricane, that then you look at mandatory enforced evacuation to a pre-arranged location and by a pre-arranged plan, using national guard to implement. {abe} you move them by neighborhoods: cuba has a good system that moves doctors with patients -- this has been done elsewhere and it ain't rocket science.{/abe} the problem is not that DHS\FEMA did nothing about ensuring the safety of the city before hand to protect it from a cat 5 storm but they also had NO other plan to deal with the eventuality. I can forgive one if the other is done. It wasn't. exactly.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1365 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Additionally, I wonder who would have had to pay for upgrades to teh levee system if the nola wanted it? Would it have come out of their coffers? how about the dhs's coffers. if they're not securing the homeland, what good are they?
Prevention may not be the answer, however, it's ridiculous that we didn't have people on the ground faster, that we didn't have everyone out of Nola because they didn't have cars. yes, like razd said. a plan of some kind would have been nice. prevention can't feasibly be done? form an evacuation plan. i can't believe that after all of the talk of terrorists and whathaveyou that the dhs hasn't been drafting evacuation plans.
And, Bush was on VACATION! Bush has been president for 5 years. How many goddamn vacations does he need? He takes a month off twice a year?!?! sadly, i don't think vacations really exist anymore.
I bet it comes out later there was an intelligence briefing that was ignored: "Katrina determined to strike the US" lol. what do you mean later? i looked at a map a few days after katrina plowed through us, and my first reaction was "wow, nola is f'ed!" these dudes are apparently getting their news from tv, btw. but that's no excuse. i'm getting MY news from tv too. and it was pretty obvious. maybe they were having a secretary tape the news, and they review it five days later or something.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1365 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
I don't care a damn bit about who was at fault or who should be blamed. That is in the past and frankly, I don't think we should waste many more resources trying to lay blame. i think this is very important, actually. a good number of people screwed up here. our government has failed us on a massice level. we can't just look at it and say "no use crying over spilled milk." we have to clean it up. and the people responsible for that are not doing their jobs. you cannot FIX a problem without first identifying it.
My point is now, and has been since before we invaded Iraq, before 9-11, is that we are not using our resources in a way that increases our security. Increasing National Security. Would having a plan and capabilities to evacuate an area threatened by natural disaster help National Security? yes. exchange "hurricane" for "atom bomb" for a second. what would we do if there was an atom bomb in nola, planted by terrorists? would we evacuate? they're both disasters. you prepare for one, you have less preparing to do for the other.
Would having the budget to make improvements to essential infrastructure help National Security? yes, it would make it harder to utterly cripple parts of the country.
Would those two things also have use in cases of terrorist threats to US Cities? It's your tax dollars at work. i'll pay a little more tax for some hurricane plans.
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Nighttrain Member (Idle past 4015 days) Posts: 1512 From: brisbane,australia Joined: |
From Alex Jones' Endgame
When Ivan aimed its fury at the Big Easy, the AP detailed what could happen if the hurricane slammed into New Orleans. In the case of Ivan, serious problems were caused by a lack of planning for a cataclysmic storm, yet with Katrina on the horizon, the lessons of Ivan were all but forgotten. A feckless state governor and New Orleans' mayor repeated the same mistakes they made with Ivan, and hundreds of thousands of largely poor people were forced to endure conditions that one associates with the Third World - not the richest nation on the planet. The disaster in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will come as no surprise to those who recall a September 19, 2004 Associated Press report. Wrote the AP: "Those who had the money to flee Hurricane Ivan ran into hours-long traffic jams. Those too poor to leave the city had to find their own shelter - a policy that was eventually reversed, but only a few hours before the deadly storm struck land." Eventually, tens of thousands of New Orleanans were directed to the Superdome - where no food, water or living facilities were provided for the massive number of refugees expected to remain there for at least several days. Fortunately few arrived. Noted the AP then: "New Orleans dodged the knockout punch many feared from the hurricane, but the storm exposed what some say are significant flaws in the Big Easy's civil disaster plans." Noted the AP story: "When another dangerous hurricane, Georges, appeared headed for the city in 1998, the Superdome was opened as a shelter and an estimated 14,000 people poured in." But just as happened after Katrina, the AP reported there were problems, including theft and vandalism. With Ivan approaching, far fewer took refuge from the storm - an estimated 1,100 - at the Superdome, and there was far greater security: 300 National Guardsmen. Wrote the AP of the Ivan debacle: "The main safety measure - getting people out of town - raised its own problems. More than 1 million people tried to leave the city and surrounding suburbs on Tuesday, creating a traffic jam as bad as or worse than the evacuation that followed Georges. In the afternoon, state police took action, reversing inbound lanes on southeastern Louisiana interstates to provide more escape routes. Bottlenecks persisted, however. "Col. Henry Whitehorn, head of state police, said he believed his agency acted appropriately, but also acknowledged he never expected a seven-hour-long crawl for the 60 miles between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. "Gov. Kathleen Blanco and [Mayor] Nagin both acknowledged the need to improve traffic flow and said state police should consider reversing highway lanes earlier. They also promised meetings with governments in neighboring localities and state transportation officials to improve evacuation plans. But it appears that nothing had been changed by the time Katrina made its appearance in the Gulf. After Ivan, Blanco and other state officials boasted that, while irritating, the clogged escape routes got people out of the most vulnerable areas. "We were able to get people out," state Commissioner of Administration Jerry Luke LeBlanc said. "It was successful. There was frustration, yes. But we got people out of harm's way." The lessons of Ivan were never learned, and the people of New Orleans paid the price. Don`t think any authority can claim they never were aware of the possible consequences after Ivan gave a preview.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1365 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Don`t think any authority can claim they never were aware of the possible consequences after Ivan gave a preview. general snafu all around.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1488 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
THE SYSTEM: Either live with it or change it. Well, we did change it. Remember? Since apparently Monk doesn't remember, let me quote from Bush's 2004 National Response Plan, which details the role of the Federal government in proactively responding to disasters:
quote: Why did the Bush administration ignore their own plan? More on the supposed "local agencies" that supposedly dropped the ball, from Andrew Sullivan:
quote: FEMA was turning away aid. It's time for Michael Brown to go. True to form, though, Bush will probably give him a medal.
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