Department Of Homeland Security Inaction At the Top

you specified the time of city shut-down: 9pm sunday. uh, no. you were arguing that they could have done it AFTER everyone else was off the highway, under huge storm surge and high winds. you said they could have done after 9pm, when the roads were closed. i'm not blaming the victims here -- but most people prefer to ride out hurricanes in their own homes, or with friends and loved ones in a safer (familiar) place. these are the people in trouble now, that the right is blaming nagin and blanco for not evacuating.

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uh, no. i'm talking about the storm surge that was OVER THE TOP of the levees well before that. you said they could have left after 9pm sunday. not me. that's the certain point here. your point is downright ludicrous.maybe they could have done it before then. but that's just speculation on your part. evacuating a city is not an easy task. i think you need to stick to a point, and stop blaming others for speculating when they're calling you on your own ridiculous speculation.

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so the national guard can't do it in 18 hours AFTER the hurricane, but 500 buses can DURING? oh, speculation, speculations. why are you so forgiving and understanding of difficulties and shortcomings HERE, but can't understand why outrunning a hurricane in 20 foot storm surge with 500 buses is harder than it sounds?

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right, now try that in a hurricane, on elevated bridges ACROSS lakes, with 15-20 feet of waves. source?and i consider it to be a "hurricane" if there are sustained 74mph winds outside, even if the eye is hours from landfall. i'm sorry if the standard definition is misleading. streets ≠ highways. if i were a police officer, that'd be about the time i'd looked for shelter. but that's just speculation, isn't it? the accepted figure, btw, is 2,000. unfortunately, nola does not have 2,000 buses. so, 500 buses could have evacuated the city safely, then? it's not a strawman if it's actually point. and yes, they probably could have -- if it was done significantly before the storm. it would have to have been organized in advance, and it was not.what WAS organized in advance was evacuation to the superdome. and they only moved about 9,000 people if i recall. so they would not have been able to round up that 20,000 figure. the superdome had about 26-28,000 at its peak occupancy, i think. (check it if you'd like) but there was definitally an increase AFTER the storm.those buses are needed NOW, not during the storm, and certainly more than they were before. a brighter plan, while we're speculating, would have been to evacuate the buses to higher ground within the city. or taken everyone within the city they could with every single bus they could, and then come back after the storm.however, i think part of the problem was the unpredictability of the levee breaches. not that they would, but which ones. those buses currently underwater would certainly be in operation if they could have been. if not from city officials, then from people who know how to hotwire. misinformation goes alogn way. everyone thought it would be safe, but it was not. it's easy to say in retrospect that of course the titanic would hit an iceberg and it would sink, but before that actually happened it was considered the safest ship ever made.the superdome was considered safe by the state and local government before the storm. if that's a goof up on their part, so be it.

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*cough* then so can the national guard. right. now imagine the same with traffic, and lots of wind and water. i'm sorry, you really can't have it both ways here gene. pick one and go with it. either the buses could get out, or the national guard couldn't get in.also. don't they have HELLICOPTERS? sure. when traffic is running faster 15-30 mph.you haven't shown that the highways were clear by the time windforce got as high as a hurricane. sure, i would have too. so would a lot of people. easy to say sitting here, isn't it? yes, but they would have had to have been stolen to do that. they were being used at the time to ferry people to the superdome. you're arguing that the plan should have been changed. yes, it probably should have. that's fine, i acknowledge that.but it's alot easier to say in retrospect.

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your scenario. not mine. your affirmitive statement was that 500 buses could safely evacuate 20,000 people. you even mentioned that they could have done as late as 9pm sunday, which i told you was ridiculous. you have said over and over that there was no traffic on the highways by the time it would have been unsafe to drive on them. i'm asking for a source saying when the highways were clear -- and you have failed to substantiate it. i should be the head of fema or something. and they did some of that, didn't they? you're examining this all in retrospect, and then picking on state and local officials for not foreseeing what we know now. the plan was to use the buses to ferry people to higher ground in the city, to shelters. that's what they did.it was a good idea. but it doesn't work without timely federal assistance. or proof that i'm building strawmen.

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Further, the roads leading out of the city were closed at about 9 PM Sunday night, hours before landfall the next morning. There was no traffic remaining there at that time.

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now, i read that as you saying that there was a window of opportunity. that's why asked: "you're saying you want people to be out driving when the roads are closed due to an impending disaster?"if this was NOT your case, you should have said so. instead, you wrote:

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When I-10 closed at about 9 Sunday night there wasn't any traffic stuck there. The buses could have left and made it just fine. Especially considering that 30 MPH is burning rubber for a hurricane.

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still seeming to be saying that the buses could have left after the traffic cleared and STILL made it. that point is, of course, ridiculous. that's the one i'm arguing. if it's a strawman, it's because you did not clarify when i asked you to.

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gov. blanco declared a state of emergency on august 26th. that's more than 24-48 hrs. see? here is me preventing a strawman by clarifying a misunderstanding. "that's not what i meant." it's pretty easy.i'm not saying send in the guard before. i'm saying get them ready to be sent in immediately afterwards. collect them in a safe area otuside the cone of improbability. it's not a long trip from, say, jacksonville or tally to nola. less than a day, including hitting the rush hour in mobile (comparable to debris clearing on an otherwise empty road, i think). oh, they certainly could have. for a long time, the incoming roads were empty. but i'm saying that if they can't get in just after, 500 buses couldn't get out just before.and 500 buses could have gotten out just before, couldn't they? so why can't the nation guard get in? they're not scared bus drivers with passengers who are freaking out. they don't have to contend with water and wind. they have tanks and helicopters amd big convoys. we have the most impressive military in the world -- which i think qualifies them for an efficient roadtrip, moreso than 500 busdrivers with 20,000 passengers.basically, i'm only saying that there's no excuse you can make for them, if you're arguing that these lowly city personal could have done better. that's all i'm asking for. just a little understanding of how shit goes wrong in extenuating circumstances.

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ok, i agree to that point.but it's still a retrospective position. the plan at the time was to seek the closest high ground they could find. and the superdome was the biggest shelter. that's been the plan for years.if there's a NEXT TIME (and i hope there's not) maybe they'll do something different. but you can't really fault them for executing the official plan flawlessly, and not foreseeing the potential faults in the official plan, like the reliance on the federal government for speedy assistance.

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missed this one. monday, tuesday, wednessday, thursday -- that's four.but you wanna know my serious opinion? fema botched andrew. feam botched frances, too. it's a pretty good history here. sadly, you are absolutely right. the federal gov't DOES move like molasses. in winter. (uphill)but that's the problem we're talking about here, isn't it? how slow the federal gov't is. especially after four years of talking about preparedness for disaster and threats to our infrastructure. it shaved all of a DAY off the time, didn't it? when the governor write to the president and say that the situation excedes the capabilities of state and local government, and asks the president to intervene by declaring a state of emergency -- and the presidnet DOES declare a state of emergency -- it is not the MAYOR'S fault for what happens. it is the president's. period.from that point, it is the president's responsibility to coordinate all federal, state, and local agencies involved in handling the disaster. that means fema, the dhs, the dod, the national guard (even if it is non-nationalized), etc.these agencies are designed to take over when the state and local government fails. if damage happens because THOSE agencies fail to act, it is not the local government's fault for not being to handle the situation they wrote to the feds for help about in the first place. no, i'm trying to say that that was the plan for the people who could no evacuate on their own. the people who could evacuate probably did. for the people that could not evacuate on their own, the plan was to try to help as MANY as possible by ferryign them to the stadium.in RETROSPECT just taking them out of the city would have been better. again, source please?

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i think you answer your own question: the national guard, in my opinion, had an appropriate response time. they were on the ground pretty fast. that might be more than crash is saying, but that's what i think.fema, and the dhs did not.the fact that i think is most damning is that WALMART had a better response time than our government. and i'm fairly certain walmart is run by the devil himself.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 09-15-2005 12:23 AM

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uh, no. it doesn't.fema did not follow the official plan, and dhs fumbled the bit that would have allowed fema to act. apparently, chertoff thought he had to specifically declare nola to be an "incident of national significance" which he waited several days to do -- not allowing fema to even come into play.he failed to realize however that although not all "incidents of national significance" are national disasters, all national disasters are automatically incidents.in other words, chertoff got in the way of fema acting, when they REALLY had authority to act from the 27th or so. basically, that's the reason for the slow response ---- chertoff followed the plan, but not in a timely manner, and in a short-sighted kind of way. the plan itself was not the flaw here.

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amen. truthfully, i don't like the look of the president being in complete control of ANYTHING. no matter who the president is, too. this is not an anti-bush thing. frankly, the ability of the president to completely control things locally in the event of a disaster scares me, but i regocnize that swift order is needed in certain circumstances.the problem here is that swift order did not come.

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yes. at least brown is gone. imho, i think he should have actually been fired, at the very least. so should a few other from their ranks, especially those with little to no qualifications.also, i think chertoff from dhs needs to go, and we need to seriously investigate them too.

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here's some more info i've been finding:

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The rescue pumped up the spirits of Task Force 5, which has been mostly marking the locations of bodies for the last week. Earlier, they had been frustrated when FEMA delayed their deployment for four days, housing them in the Hyatt Regency in Dallas.

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They were frustrated further when they were given the FEMA order that they weren't allowed to force their way into houses to search them. They hope Hollingsworth's rescue will coax FEMA to rethink its directive.

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http://www.pnionline.com/...og/attytood/archives/002362.html

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and for all those whining about blanco not asking for help, even though she did:

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Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials.

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apparently she didn't need to, like i said. as i pointed out before, chertoff didn't declare an incident of national significance until the 30th, even though the presidential declaration of disaster had already happened on the 27th, prior to the hurricane, totally eliminating the need for chertoff's memo.there appear to be some pretty nasty kinks in the chain of command here, and chertoff is one of them.

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well the problem is that the structure is not consistent. when the mayor is in trouble, he turns it over to the governor. when the gov. is in trouble, she calls the feds.it is not the sole job of nagin to prepare for disaster, nor is it his duty to only work on ways to prevent disaster and clean them up afterwards. neither is it blanco's job.but it IS fema's job. what i'm asking for is that they do their job, and do it effectively. it is understandable that a mayor and a governor didn't succeed -- but fema is the last resort they turn to.it is not a double standard to expect fema and the dhs to do their jobs. but it is unreasonable to expect a mayor and a governor to do fema's job. see the difference? yes, and it probably should have been done. in retrospect. fema should probably organize that type of thing, actually.

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