Bush supporters' aftermath thread

Funny, Foxy.

You're right. I'll behave. <kicks can>

So e.g. the levees were higher - or at least high enough - in Mississippi and Alabama and food supplies arrived earlier ... due to the governors that did their jobs and worked with instead of against FEMA?

The President can request such authority from the governor. President Bush did that in advance of the hurricane and declared a national emergency that would allow the use of federal troops. He was turned down.

The President requested the governor take action that the Federal government would have taken; ie mandatory evacuation in advance of the storm. She did not.

Prior to the levee breaking, FEMA through its associated agencies had trucks in place to deliver food and water to the Superdome. They were turned away on pretext they did not want to attract more people to that shelter.

Note that even though the devastation was as severe in Mississippi and Alabama, you don't hear the same criticisms and complaints that is coming from Louisiana.

Why? Because the governors there did their jobs and worked with instead of against FEMA. They didn't expect FEMA to take the point and they didn't expect FEMA to do it all.

Did the bureaucracy get in the way of efficiency and effectiveness. Absolutely and those things should be looked at an should be corrected.

But the most criticism is from a flooded city that should have been evacuated and wasn't.

And the fact remains, the cavalry was offered far earlier than the Louisiana governor finally agreed to it.

*A first shipment of 30,000 tarps is en route to Atlanta, Ga., to be pre-staged for delivery to areas affected by Frances once the storm has cleared.

*FEMA is working to provider 10 trailers of generators at the request of Florida that will be used to provide power to critical facilities affected by the hurricane. Generators will be staged at Warner Robbins Air Force Base.

**Two Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMAT) have been deployed to Florida to support medical facilities and hospitals that are not fully operational following the storm. Two additional DMATs are staged in Atlanta, three are enroute to Atlanta, and one Veterinary Medical Assistance Team is on standby. An additional four DMATs have been placed on alert, The DMATs are comprised of doctors, nurses and medical technicians trained to handle trauma, pediatrics, surgery and mental health problems. DMATs bring truckloads of medical equipment and supplies with them.

*Five pharmaceutical caches, containing emergency medical supplies, are being pre-positioned, and are currently en route to Atlanta and Tampa.

*FEMA's Mobile Emergency Response Services (MERS) communications staff and equipment are available to provide telephone, radio and video links in support of response and recovery efforts. About 100 MERS personnel and about 75 vehicles - including Mobile Emergency Operations Center (MEOCs) equipped vehicles and Mobile Radio Vans (MRVs) to provide radio capability have been assigned to support Hurricane Frances response and recovery operations.

FEMA responds to requests from the local officials in charge. FEMA is not intended nor designed to push in and run disaster control from the get go.

The timeline you posted is one of dozens on the internet with variances and shadings depending on how those posting them want them to perceive. Some are at least honorably correcting erroneous data as new information comes in.

Can you say with absolute confidence that yours is the real deal with no amendment necessary?

I will stand by the information I and others have posted as well, and will trust the bipartisan Congressional investigation to come up with the final timelines for this.

Woe to whistleblowers
By Thomas Oliphant | September 8, 2005

WASHINGTON
SUSAN WOOD and Bunnatine Greenhouse, senior government officials, had nothing to do with Hurricane Katrina or the government's disgraceful, tardy response to its horrid aftermath.

But just as civic collapse produces price gougers and looters, these gutsy women are examples of what can go on when the nation's attention is diverted by catastrophe: Bad people behave really badly, taking cowardly cover behind the explosion of other news.

Just as Katrina was being upgraded to a dangerous hurricane headed straight at the Gulf Coast, Dr. Wood's political bosses at the Food and Drug Administration decided to circumvent procedure and probably law to block approval of over-the-counter sales of the birth control medicine known as the morning-after pill. Their circumvention of process made the position of the widely respected public health official untenable and, in an act of commendable integrity, she resigned last week.

And just as Katrina was bearing down on the coast on that fateful Sunday, Greenhouse's bosses at the Army Corps of Engineers, with Donald Rumsfeld ultimately responsible, demoted her for following procedure strictly and raising detailed objections to contracts awarded more than two years ago under shady circumstances to a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. The obvious, underhanded retaliation against Greenhouse occurred even as the Corps's inspector general, together with officials from the Justice Department, was continuing an investigation into the contracts based on the information supplied by the very same Greenhouse.