Department Of Homeland Security Inaction At the Top

Now, as for this:Yeah, of course it was made by somebody that knows how to digitally manipulate images. Unless you believe that Mayor Nagin was out there on Tuesday with spray paint pointing out his failures for passing satellites. If he did, then I know what his next career should be.Your argument about blindmanphoto.com is an expression of the Genetic Fallacy. It's also begging the question since I note that you haven't actually presented any evidence of faking, but instead are casually mentioning the possibility to advance your position.This message has been edited by gene90, 09-14-2005 08:29 PMThis message has been edited by AdminJar, 09-14-2005 07:50 PM

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none of the federal ones. the idea of ferrying multiple busloads to a safe place within the city doesn't work if the feds don't come to bail them out.

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So far you haven't explained why it wouldn't work.

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fema did not keep up their end of the bargain. and given the severity of the storm, and the requests for help that came from the state and local officials

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Yeah, Blanco asked for $9 million. That wasn't enough to do anything. Governors have to specifically enumerate what they want from FEMA. Blanco didn't do that because she didn't have a clue as to what her responsibilities were as governor.

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you're blaming BEFORE the storm, they should have been prepared to get there in a timely manner.

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They did get there in a timely manner. They got there in three days, it took them five with Andrew.This message has been edited by gene90, 09-14-2005 08:46 PM

uh, no. it wouldn't. see, we live a federal democratic republic, not a confederacy. that means that the federal government has authority over the state governments. we kind of sorted this issue out back in the civil war.frankly, once a state of emergency has been declared by the president, the federal government has the authority to use any resources it wants to help.this is title 42, section 5170, a and b.

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All requests for a declaration by the President that a major
disaster exists shall be made by the Governor of the affected
State. Such a request shall be based on a finding that the disaster
is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond
the capabilities of the State and the affected local governments
and that Federal assistance is necessary.

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In any major disaster, the President may -
  (1) direct any Federal agency, with or without reimbursement,
to utilize its authorities and the resources granted to it under
Federal law (including personnel, equipment, supplies,
facilities, and managerial, technical, and advisory services) in
support of State and local assistance efforts;
  (2) coordinate all disaster relief assistance (including
voluntary assistance) provided by Federal agencies, private
organizations, and State and local governments;
  (3) provide technical and advisory assistance to affected State
and local governments for -
    (A) the performance of essential community services;
    (B) issuance of warnings of risks and hazards;
    (C) public health and safety information, including
  dissemination of such information;
    D) provision of health and safety measures; and
  (E) management, control, and reduction of immediate threats
to public health and safety; and
  (4) assist State and local governments in the distribution of
medicine, food, and other consumable supplies, and emergency
assistance.

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(c) Utilization of DOD resources
(1) General rule
  During the immediate aftermath of an incident which may
ultimately qualify for assistance under this subchapter or
subchapter IV-A of this chapter, the Governor of the State in
which such incident occurred may request the President to direct
the Secretary of Defense to utilize the resources of the
Department of Defense for the purpose of performing on public and
private lands any emergency work which is made necessary by such
incident and which is essential for the preservation of life and
property. If the President determines that such work is
essential for the preservation of life and property, the
President shall grant such request to the extent the President
determines practicable. Such emergency work may only be carried
out for a period not to exceed 10 days.

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now, those dod resources are of course the armed forces. so the governor asks the president to declare a state of disaster. the president then has the authority to control any federal, state, or local agency. any, including fema, dhs, the army, the navy, etc. the governor may also specifically ask for the armed forces, but such does not seem to be required as the dod is one such federal agency in part a.while we're looking at usc, here's 5195 of the same title:

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The Federal Government shall provide
necessary direction, coordination, and guidance, and shall provide
necessary assistance, as authorized in this subchapter so that a
comprehensive emergency preparedness system exists for all hazards.

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that whol section basically outlines what agencies like the dhs and fema SHOULD do. as you can see above, the president has the authority to utilize and coordinate ANY federal agency, including the dod, for disaster relief. but the general procedure seems to be that the governer should ask for the dod's assistance -- because, like you said. martial law is a serious thing. governor blanco was asking for a state of disaster. she got that. that's all that was needed to authorize the president to help. also, according to the report came back from the congressional research service that blanco took the neccessary steps in a timely fashion: Join Our Campaign to Defeat Trump's Republican Agendaso, uh, officially, she did EXACTLY what she was supposed to do. i wouldn't call that incompetence. she gave the authority for the president to act before the storm made landfall. the president took that authority by declaring disaster. somewhere between there and mike brown's "we just learned of this today" is where the incompetance REALLY occured. you don't have to spell out what you need. if you read the above and the other sections related to it, it's up to feds to determine what you need. all you have to do is say "we can't handle it on our own, help us" and get the prez to declare disaster. well, i've just shown that even if true, your argument doesn't hold much water (so to speak). unfortunately, it's NOT true:

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Early Wednesday morning, Blanco tried to call Bush. She was transferred around the White House for a while until she ended up on the phone with Fran Townsend, the president's Homeland Security adviser, who tried to reassure her but did not have many specifics. Hours later, Blanco called back and insisted on speaking to the president. When he came on the line, the governor recalled, "I just asked him for help, 'whatever you have'." She asked for 40,000 troops. "I just pulled a number out of the sky," she later told NEWSWEEK.

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i thought i wouldn't need to. i guess neither you nore michael brown have a tv.it doesn't work because there's only a limited supply of food, water, and facilities. the choice is between saving 9k people period, or saving 100k for three days in the hopes of rescue that is supposedly gauranteed, most reasonable people would take the 100k over the 9. they absolutely do not. read the LAWS i just posted that say the president is responsible for coordination and advisement of the relief effort. NOT the governor. according to brown, it took them three days to FIND OUT about it. not get there. nearest i can tell, from blanco's initial request, it took FIVE days (aug 26th to aug 31) for bush to get around to coordinating anything, and EIGHT days for fema to coordinate an evacuation effort (aug 26th to sep 3rd).so no, that's not timely.

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You're generous enough to assume that New Orleans has a bus seat for every student in a NO school? Apparently you don't understand what kind of place NO is.Look, we know from their own records how many buses the New Orleans Parish School system owns, from their own records: 324, in 2003, the most recent number avaliable. Not almost 3000. Now, I've seen New Orleans schools. Have you? I saw buildings that couldn't afford to fix broken windows or have air conditioning during days that top 100 degrees or more; I don't think that the parish bought 2500 school buses in the last two years, do you?That plus the public buses owned by New Orleans RTA comes to 688. 688 *40 is 27,000 or so. Assuming that every single bus was usable, which we know was not the case - many people did leave in buses both before and after so those buses aren't avaliable for the public evacuation. Plus about 70 were apparently non-working.Before the hurricane, the Times-Picayune investigated the use of public buses to evacuate the city; their investigation concluded the New Orleans had enough buses to evacuate only 22,000 people.There were not 2,000 buses. There were not 2800 buses. There were less than 700. Many of the buses were used to evacuate city residents, as many of the surviors can attest. But mobilizing the city's buses in a coordinated effort to rescue people in streets becoming rapidly impassable to vehicles likely would have entailed a cost in manpower not commensurate with the benefit.Did the mayor do everything he could have? No, I don't believe he did. But criticisms of his actions should be grounded in provable fact, in the truth, and not in the ravings of the right-wingers in full-on "blame anybody but Bush" mode. It doesn't do anybody any good to concoct a story to make it look like Nagin held the salvation of the city in the palm of his hand and threw it away when he did no such thing.

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as you can see above, the president has the authority to utilize and coordinate ANY federal agency, including the dod, for disaster relief. but the general procedure seems to be that the governer should ask for the dod's assistance -- because, like you said. martial law is a serious thing.

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I'll agree with you here because I think you have adequately established this.However, it doesn't matter too much because Blanco has already admitted her failure on CNN.ForbiddenThis message has been edited by gene90, 09-14-2005 09:10 PMThis message has been edited by gene90, 09-14-2005 09:10 PM

uh. no. that's NOT a bussing statistic. that's a population statistic. it's assuming that everyone rides the bus. they do not. many, many people are driven by parents or walk. (did you ever go to school? this is a pretty simple observation...) even if they DID move 112 thousand people a day, they'd be doing it in THREE SHIFTS. that drops the number of buses to a third of whatever you're thinking.that's 935 buses, assuming EVERYONE rides a bus to school, and everyone goes to school. see why short shifts are vastly better at moving people than long hauls?300 come buses sounds reasonable, considering that not everyone rides the bus. yes. uselessly.

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which is funny. because newsweek has a date for her asking for troops.

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Look, we know from their own records how many buses the New Orleans Parish School system owns, from their own records: 324, in 2003, the most recent number avaliable. Not almost 3000.

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Let's assume your figure is correct, since you didn't bother to cite a source. 400 Transit buses and 300 School buses. At forty people per bus, that's 28,000 people that could have gotten out of the city but didn't, assuming they only have time to make one run. That's 28,000 people that could have gotten out of a doomed city before a 30-ft storm surge arrived, had the original forecasts come to pass.Whether it is 28,000 or 70,000, it is still negligence.

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Many of the buses were used to evacuate city residents, as many of the surviors can attest. But mobilizing the city's buses in a coordinated effort to rescue people in streets becoming rapidly impassable to vehicles likely would have entailed a cost in manpower not commensurate with the benefit.

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Not commensurate with the benefit? 28,000 people is close to the maximum number of people that were trapped by Nagin in the Superdome. This isn't a small number of people.

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which is funny. because newsweek has a date for her asking for troops

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That's doubly funny because Blanco doesn't have a date.She told the CNN reporter that she "couldn't remember" what day it was when she requested troops, and I have the video. Great leadership in action.Also recorded and played over the cable network was her telling an assistant that she "should've asked for troops".This message has been edited by gene90, 09-14-2005 09:25 PM

pointing out the obvious. the person who posted the pic intends to mislead with imagery.did you check that the satellite pictures were accurate? you don't need to mess about in photoshop to mislead with images. for instance those "unused buses" right next to the superdome appear to be tractor-trailers. as do the ones in the convention center lot. the big white long boxes are SOLID (you can tell by the shado they cast) and the occasional one has a rounded thing in front of it.here's a better resolution photo from goole earth from before the hurricane (check the coords, btw, if you don't believe me). these look like buses to you? in other words, the captions are TOTALLY misleading.

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uh. no. that's NOT a bussing statistic. that's a population statistic. it's assuming that everyone rides the bus. they do not. many, many people are driven by parents or walk. (did you ever go to school? this is a pretty simple observation...)

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Yeah, but it gives a baseline estimate of how many kids go to school in New Orleans, and that number ought to be about 70% at least, by my expectations. However, the catch is that I didn't go to school in a majory city where it could be more feasible to walk.However, the fundamental problem is that even if you only have 700 buses, you can still get 28,000 people out of the city ahead of the storm.

ok. what date did that interview air?on what date did you last do your laundry? get your haircut? if i press you for answers in an interview, and don't give you time to think, will you have answers?she had a date and an approx. time for newsweek.

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here's a better resolution photo from goole earth from before the hurricane (check the coords, btw, if you don't believe me). these look like buses to you?

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Not familiar with the concept of a dual-use facility, are you?Here, maybe you'll like this one better. It's hosted at Snopes.com

nor is it a small number to jam up the highways with. or a small number to trap outside sturdy shelter in a category four storm.there's a point at which it's no longer safe to be outside in a hurricane. everything until then is a RACE to safety. ANY safety.

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