The Blame Game Part Two

From even before the beginning of this crisis, the Louisiana Governor,Kathleen Blanco, has treated this situation as a political issue. As I watched her last Sunday morning press conference, I was amused at how she invoked the President's name on several occasions.

Blanco noted how she spoke to the President the day before (Saturday, Aug.27) and how it was Bush who called her to issue a state of emergency for the state of Louisiana. This was unusual since I know (from relatives, living in Florida) that it is usually the Governor who makes this declaration. But even more unusual was how Blanco noted that it was also the President who called her to insist and plead that she issue a mandatory evacuation.

At the time I didn't realize why she was turning all this responsibility over to the President, . . . but then I realized why. Just a year ago when Hurricane Ivan barely missed the city of New Orleans, both the Governor and the city planners took extreme heat for the inconveniences they caused their population when hurricane Ivan didn't hit their city. Both state and local officials took criticism from all areas, including their failures to prepare for that hurricane.

Amazingly, that criticism led to the slow reactions we saw this past weekend as Katrina approached the Louisiana coast. Each public official looked to the other to make the life-saving calls because they didn't want to be responsible for another false alarm . . . . In other words, there was no leadership from the start. When President Bush called on Saturday to ask what the heck was going on, the governor finally took action because she now had her scapegoat should Katrina not hit the city.

What's outrageous about this is that we only have to go back to hurricane Ivan to see what this reluctance meant. From the beginning the mayor was warned of his inadequate city plans. He did NOTHING! This was even exposed in an AP report from September 19, 2004, by Kevin McGill entitled, "Ivan exposes flaws in New Orleans’s disaster plans." Not only was the mayor warned about his problem of relocating the poor, homeless advocacy groups insisted he make changes. Again, he did NOTHING.

A quote from that AP article notes: "They say evacuate, but they don't say how I'm supposed to do that," Latonya Hill, 57, said at the time. "If I can't walk it or get there on the bus, I don't go. I don't got a car. My daughter don't neither." Even the ACLU criticized the mayor, noting, "If the government asks people to evacuate, the government has some responsibility to provide an option for those people who can't evacuate and are at the whim of Mother Nature," said Joe Cook of the New Orleans ACLU.

The mayor had a full year, and yet, nothing was done. And this is reprehensible since even the American Red Cross informed the mayor that they would no longer be setting up shelters within the city for hurricanes over category-2. They informed the mayor that it was just too dangerous and that his city was ill-prepared to handle that kind of crisis. Others even warned that the Superdome was insufficient since it would turn into an island with thousands trapped. This all happened a year ago. Mayor Ray Nagin's spokeswoman, Tanzie Jones, responded to the criticism, "Our main focus is to get the people out of the city." No kidding?!?

What's disturbing about all of this is how Mayor Nagin ignored most of his own "Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan": (A. Evacuation Time Requirements) "Using information developed as part of the Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Task Force and other research, the City of New Orleans has established a maximum acceptable hurricane evacuation time standard for a Category 3 storm event of 72 hours." Katrina was already a Category-3 hurricane, predicted to hit New Orleans from at least Friday. So much for being prepared, ehh??

Continuing with Nagin's emergency plan: "The City of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas. Those evacuated will be directed to temporary sheltering and "feeding" facilities as needed, . . . special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life saving assistance." Hmm, . . . yet we have all seen the pictures of school and city buses sitting, unocupied and useless, in drowned-out parking lots. What makes this all the more deplorable, is that neither of these public officials had ordered "mandatory" evacuations until after hearing from the President on Saturday, . . . and that was already well within the 72-hour window.

The partisan politics didn't stop there. Every state governor has a National Guard at their disposal, . . . not to mention all the State Police and various other law enforcement agencies at their disposal. Louisiana still retained 66% of their National Guard for a crisis just like this one. In fact, having been declared a state of emergency by the President (last Saturday), the governor not only has the power to request federal resources, she can request the National Guard from surrounding states. She did neither, before this storm.

In fact, according to a report from the Washington Post: "A power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday. The administration had sought control over National Guard units, normally under control of the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request, noting that such amove would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law." Now, this statement has been twisted and spun into various versions of partisan "fact," and it's incumbent upon the Washington Post to clarify, because they had it right, the first time, . . . but they won't.

What makes matters worse is that this governor failed to even use her own National Guard for the purposes of law enforcement, something granted to her under Article IV, Section 5 of the State Constitution. This was also a political decision because she did not want to be the person giving orders that might result in the shooting of "poor, black people." Can you imagine the outrage come election day?? This was made more difficult since not only did the mayor of New Orleans, but also her own Attorney General, begin justifying the looting shortly after the hurricane passed. How could they suddenly establish order after dismissing this criminal activity under a "need to survive." Is it any wonder why cops walked off the job to attend their own families?? Not only were they not getting the support they needed, their own leaders were helping to perpetuate the chaos that followed. ABC News even had video of two female NOPD officers looting a Wal-Mart store, pushing a shopping cart filled with personal items, while wearing their NOPD uniforms, themselves.

What's ironic, is that these people even had almost a 24-hour window to clean up this mess (and evacuate) and establish order after the hurricane passed, . . . and before the levees broke. I was stunned to learn that not only did some bars stay open, but some reopened by late Monday afternoon. You could see the celebratory attitude of some, as they relocated from their balconies in the French Quarter to the streets below, . . . exhaling over what they thought was another near-miss. Even Sheppard Smith (Fox News Network) who would later become a very vocal critic, was breathing a sigh of relief. Sadly, city officials alsodropped their guard, as other city dwellers did, . . . . all thinking they got away with another close call.

While we all understand the need to survive, the lawlessness that was allowed to break out immediately after the hurricane passed would only complicate rescue and recovery efforts. As a result, chaos ensued and the governor, for political reasons, just would not take control of a situation that would surely destroy her political chances if poor, black people were killed, . . . especially since many in her own administration were dismissing this criminal activity. You could even hear the justification by some as if these people were owed these things. The sad fact is, there was a complete lack of leadership from the start, . . . but it was missing from the local and state levels, NOT the federal level.

Unfortunately, this security issue would also impede the arrival of any external support. It should be noted that FEMA is not in anyway an armed response team. In fact, as part of their mission statement, it is understood that their response time for such crisis is generally 3-5days, . . . and this is under the best of circumstances. I know, because, as I said, I have relatives who live in Florida and have witnessed it firsthand, as they didn't role into town for a couple days.

Before we start blaming FEMA and the federal government, I think there aresome very serious questions that need to be asked and answered. The reason that FEMA is not a first responder is because it is assumed that both the state and local officials could at least handle things for a few days. Not to mention that unlike local governments, the Federal government has to transport, scout the area, clear any debris and setup their own mobile operations, . . . .something the state is at least expected to do to help alleviate problems.

Let's just forget the hurricanes for a moment and ask how it is that a city living below sea-level, with a risk of a levee break or torrential rainfall at ANY time, was in no way prepared to even feed or clothe those that may be left behind for 3-5 days?? How is it also that a city as big as New Orleans only had one shelter "of last resort" for the poor and elderly?? Granted, there were other less publicized locations and we did learn the Convention Center would later become a defacto shelter, but how is it that supplies weren't designated for these shelters when even after Ivan last year they were warned of this inadequacy?? How??

The mayor promised that he would establish a more orderly evac/refuge system after Ivan last year. And this is very relevant when we look at the security issues and the federal response that had to follow. In fact, one of those immediate problems was the Convention Center itself, which was never designated as a refuge by the state, yet became home for up to 30,000 residents. As Mike Brown from FEMA noted on Friday, he and his team weren't even aware of this location until Thursday, Sep. 1. Maybe that points out a flaw in procedures, but certainly not a flaw in preparedness from the FEMA perspective.

Because of this lack of planning, we now had approximately 60,000 refugees just between these two shelters alone. And because there were no provisions for either food and water, . . . or adequate security, we "immediately" had a chaotic situation. The very reason you need numerous, smaller shelters is so you can allocate resources and control more easily. And while others may have existed, the Superdome (and Civic Center) were allowed to become the primary refuge site for an entire city, without thinking about the consequences. And as with everything else, this was not a new problem as Hurricane Georges in 1998 showed the city they weren't prepared to even handle 14,000 people. Unfortunately, these circumstances meant that the very food and water drops that people expected to see, couldn't happen at that time.

As many Guardsmen and military people have now noted, you cannot just drop a "limited" amount of supplies into a large population that is already hungry and chaotic. And that doesn't even include the logistics of getting this support into a flooded, ravaged region. The images of Somalia and Afghanistan prove this to be true as people fought, shot and killed each other to reach the supplies. This action had the potential to create even more deaths, . . . especially since security and law enforcement presence wasvery limited at these locations. And while before this event I may have conceded that Americans would never behave in this manner, . . . it took only aday for me to realize that I was wrong.

The fact is, the very security and lawlessness that the mayor and governor dismissed as "people needing to survive" was the genesis of why things couldn't get done in a timely fashion. Even the normal responders such as the Red Cross refused to enter until their safety could be assured. All ofthis was a result of the lack of preparedness and leadership from those in state and local government.

What's also missing from this discussion is that the Federal government not only had New Orleans to deal with, they still had the rest of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and even parts of Florida; a total land mass of something like 90,000 square miles. Think about that, . . . and then think about our supposedly "limited" government that is being asked to act like a first-responder. Why have a state or local government with elected officials, if all they are going to do is moan and groan, after the fact. All of these issues are the responsibility of the state and local officials, . . . and I don't see ONE thing they got right, making everything more difficult from the start.

This is also another perfect example of how the dependency on the federal government has created an attitude of entitlement, where people can't even plan for their own survival if needed. Tuna and tap water doesn't cost alot, . . . even for the poorest among us. Three to five days is what was required of the state under the best of circumstances, . . . and neither them or some citizens could handle that. Add the fact that these people have always lived in a fishbowl, below sea-level, knowing what could happen at any time, simply astounds me. It wasn't Katrina or George Bush that destroyed this city, . . . it was the local politicians.

God Bless,
Dan'L