Bush supporters' aftermath thread

Most state and local governments are sloppy when it comes to fiscal management. Blaming the government of LA and the mayor of NO is myopic at best. Everybody including the citizens are responsible to demand better governance. Until that's done, it's futile to expect more from our government representatives.

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Nothing of the sort you imply has changed in the laws establishing what FEMA can and should do. Legally the FEMA of today is identical to the FEMA of the 1990s, except for its new assignment to the Homeland Security Department. The authority of state and local governments is not legally dependent of the severity of the situatiuons they face. In their appointed domain their authority is complete and unlimited.

A severe disaster can overwhelm whatever agency, private or government, local or Federal charged with managing it. Just how severe the disaster that is required is a function of the excellence (or lack of it) in the agency's preparations and actions after the event. The first response and the public safety functions were entirely a matter for state and local government. Period.

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GeorgeOB1 writes

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I believe the missing element in the New Orleans disaster was the competent leadership and management of local government. Under our constitution there is no Federal substitute for that. We get the kind of government we elect. The unfortunate people of New Orleans didn't do very well in that area.

I think this is underscored that the leadership and local government in Alabama and Mississippi was competent and did do their jobs and you're not hearing the whining and caterwauling from those states both of which suffered tremendous damage and loss of life. In fact trying to even get regular news reporting out of those states, or in areas in Louisiana outside of New Orleans for that matter, is difficult.

In the final analysis FEMA will get properly rapped for any failures as appropriate. But I think they probably won't get the rapping that the anti-Bush people want them to get.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Most state and local governments are sloppy when it comes to fiscal management. Blaming the government of LA and the mayor of NO is myopic at best. Everybody including the citizens are responsible to demand better governance. Until that's done, it's futile to expect more from our government representatives.

Well I don't blame the Mayor of LA at all. Riordan did a marvelous job of forcing an ever incompetent CALTRANS to temporarily give up their bureaucratic methods and place some incentive-based contracts to restore the Santa Monica freeway to service in record time. (FEMA paid for most of the job, by the way). Even the Oakland city government did a fine job - the mayor then was Elihu Harris, and I watched him do a remarkably difficult job with sober and level-headed competence under very difficult conditions. The contrast with New Orleans couldn't be greater.

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Foxfyre wrote:

I think this is underscored that the leadership and local government in Alabama and Mississippi was competent and did do their jobs and you're not hearing the whining and caterwauling from those states both of which suffered tremendous damage and loss of life. In fact trying to even get regular news reporting out of those states, or in areas in Louisiana outside of New Orleans for that matter, is difficult.

Hop back a page or two and you will see that they are none too pleased in those states either. But their cities are still relatively fit for human habitation, which is quite a distinction.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Nothing of the sort you imply has changed in the laws establishing what FEMA can and should do. Legally the FEMA of today is identical to the FEMA of the 1990s, except for its new assignment to the Homeland Security Department. The authority of state abd local governments is not legally dependent of the severity of the situatiuons they face. In their appointed domain their authority is complete and unlimited.

Are you saying that the law prohibits the feds from coordinating disaster response? Which laws and what do they say?

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FreeDuck, As a matter of fact, as the result of the Katrina disaster, the federal government is now considering using the army to intercede in anticipated disasters.

george, I said "most," not all. I have also read that California is the most prepared for disaster of any state in the union.

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FreeDuck wrote:

Are you saying that the law prohibits the feds from coordinating disaster response? Which laws and what do they say?

Not at all. However they must have something going on to "coordinate". In Louisiana they encountered hostility, incompetence, and obstructiuonism. Hard to coordinate that.

In the disasters I recounted above there was strong, competent local government which did fine jobs leading the disaster mitigation and recovery efforts, and they were ably backed up by a FEMA that coordinated backup response from other agencies and provided major assists in funding as well. In Louisana the local government had an inadequate emergency plan and did a very poor job in carrying it out. Instead of working with the Fedceral agencies assigned to help them they initially obstructed needed actions and later attempted to point a finger of blame for their own failures at them. The only unique element in the New Orleans disaster was the local governments - and they blew it.

This issue is not political for me. The mayors of San Francisco and Oakland during the cited disasters (Art Agnew and Elihu Harris) were both Democrats, while Riordin of LA was a rather moderate Republican. All three did their jobs well.

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I don't doubt that some local governments are better practiced at responding to disaster, and that the NO government and the LA government are probably not strong in this regard. However, I disagree that "the only unique element in the New Orleans disaster was the local governments." The FEMA you worked with was not encumbered with a new bureaucracy. The disasters you talk about were just not equivalent to a city with a population of half a million (not including tourists) being completely flooded with toxic sludge. They just aren't comparable. I have no doubt that stronger local leaders would have done better, but it still doesn't change the fact that the feds just didn't show up for work.

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Well as the facts begin to come in and wash away the hyperbole that substituted for meaningful information in the media reports, we are finding that New Orleans was not filled with "toxic sludge" at all, but rather with muddy untreated water with high counts of typical bacteria. There is a big difference between the two, and it is interesting to see this element of media hype deflated.

There is no evidence that the new layer of Homeland Security bureaucracy inhibited FEMA in any significant way. I agree the added bureaucracy is probably a waste - just as is about 20% of all gove4rnment bureaucracy - however I see no evidence that it was a significantly inhibiting factor in this event.

I do agree that the scale of the disaster that hit New Orleans was a good deal greater than most other such events. When is the last time anyone had to evacuate a city with more than a million inhabitants? I have also pointed out that in other large disasters that are at least partly analogous, such as the earthquakes that hit Japan a few years ago, one finds widespread death and destruction, even though after the fact one can truthfully say that the earthquake or flood could have been predicted (though not accurately) and that with suffiicient advance infrastructure standards and systems the damage could have been avoided. Thia is merely to say that some natueral disasters exceed our preparations for them - a rather obvious and unremarkable truth.

I am not a big proponent of fault-finding and finger pointing after this sad event. However I do believe that if we must have it, it is important to aim at the right target so we don't waste valuable resources fixing a problem that doesn't exist and , instead, perhaps address one that does.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Well as the facts begin to come in and wash away the hyperbole that substituted for meaningful information in the media reports, we are finding that New Orleans was not filled with "toxic sludge" at all, but rather with muddy untreated water with high counts of typical bacteria. There is a big difference between the two, and it is interesting to see this element of media hype deflated.

So you're saying there were no household chemicals in the water and no oil slicks from oil tanks that had moved off their foundation?

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There is no evidence that the new layer of Homeland Security bureaucracy inhibited FEMA in any significant way. I agree the added bureaucracy is probably a waste - just as is about 20% of all gove4rnment bureaucracy - however I see no evidence that it was a significantly inhibiting factor in this event.

No? You don't think folding FEMA into a larger and brand new department whose biggest concern is terrorist attacks would affect its ability to respond with agility? Why didn't they declare an incident of national significance before late tuesday? Did FEMA need someone to say these words in order to act before it was folded into DHS?

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Thia is merely to say that some natueral disasters exceed our preparations for them - a rather obvious and unremarkable truth.

Indeed.

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I am not a big proponent of fault-finding and finger pointing after this sad event. However I do believe that if we must have it, it is important to aim at the right target so we don't waste valuable resources fixing a problem that doesn't exist and , instead, perhaps address one that does.

Me neither. I don't know if there is anything that could actually have been prevented. But, and this is a big but, I am critical of the lackadaisical response from the feds. I don't know if they could have shown up early enough to help the evacuation, but they certainly could have helped get people out after the flood. They were very late, and that's not normal, even for FEMA.

My interest in this is almost entirely in the form of "what does this say about our ability to respond to natural disasters and, inevitably, terrorist attacks." I'm not defending LA and NO governments (other than correcting false accusations for the sake of the argument), but my attention remains on the feds because of what their performance says about our government.

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If Bush is able to fly from Crawford to Washington DC to get involved in a brain-damaged woman's life, he certainly could have gotten involved sooner in NO where hundreds of thousands lives that includes women and children were at stake. Or, is that asking for too much of our pres?

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FreeDuck wrote:

So you're saying there were no household chemicals in the water and no oil slicks from oil tanks that had moved off their foundation?

Not at all. "No" means zero. There are normally measurable quantities of petroleum and solvents in the ordinary stormwater runoff after even an ordinary rainstorm in any city. What I am saying is that recent reports from competent agencies and laboratories that have evaluated the water samples have demonstrated conclusively that earlier media reports and your characterization of it as "toxic sludge" were and are false.

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No? You don't think folding FEMA into a larger and brand new department whose biggest concern is terrorist attacks would affect its ability to respond with agility? Why didn't they declare an incident of national significance before late tuesday? Did FEMA need someone to say these words in order to act before it was folded into DHS?

FEMA responds to even local emergencies. The President had declared the Gulf Coast and New Orleans a disaster area long before that and thus mobilized FEMA. No declaration of "national significance " was ever needed to mobilize them, nor did the want of one delay their response. However the first responders are - by law - the local government agencies.

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I am critical of the lackadaisical response from the feds. I don't know if they could have shown up early enough to help the evacuation, but they certainly could have helped get people out after the flood. They were very late, and that's not normal, even for FEMA.

Was the Federal government's response truly "lacadaisical"? I think the facts contradict you. NOAA provided timely warnings of the storm's approach and of its expected severity. The director even made direct personal calls to both mayor and governor urging them to anticipate the need for evacuation. The President declared the region a disaster area even before the hurricane passed making them eligible for federal funds and FEMA recovery assistance. The Coast Guard was on scene almost immediately conducting rescue operations. The fact is the whole New Orleans government was paralyzed by the lack of prudently required back up communications and effective decision-making. The police Department and other City agencies were non functional for several days leading the governor to refuse the federalization of the national guard, instead holding it for police functions. In her public statements the Governor offered only excuses and blame shifting instead of the leadership she was elected to provide.

If there was anything lacadaisical by government in all this it was the authorities in "The Big Easy" who were primarily responsible for emergency preparedness (including backup communications systems and backup power supply for the pumping stations, and -most interestingly - the maintenance of the levees).

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A few pages ago, Timber posted a lot of data on the frustrations and misery in the wake of hurrican Floyd experienced by Clinton's FEMA which gets the highest parts of efficiency of anybody's FEMA.

Here is another story in the wake of Hurricane Charley that also was handled by Clinton's FEMA.

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As survivors wait in heat, hope wilts, tempers fray
The power's out for days, maybe weeks. Lines for everything are long. And officials worry what will happen to survivors' patience.
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/08/17/Weather/As_survivors_wait_in_.shtml

A comparison of Andrew and Charley

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http://www.sptimes.com/2004/08/17/Weather/Unlike_Andrew__aid_s_.shtml

Response and responsibility in a disaster:

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-09-07-katrina-responsibilities_x.htm

Jeb Bush on FEMA

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http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/07/State/Governor_Bush_defends.shtml

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Earlier I made the point here that many posters want us to have an intrusive national government that regulates most aspect of our lives, including traditionally local issues of land use, infrastructure and public safety. It is understandable that they should measure the real response to this disaster compared to what they imagine should have been the case if we were governed as they wish.

However the fact is we are a Federal Republic in which primary power and authority is vested in State and local government - not the national government. The Constitution specifies and limits the powers of national government and expressedly leaves all the rest to the states. I for one like it that way and do not wish to see us grow an ever more intrusive (and costly) national government. I believe this issue is aalso detectable undercurtrent in this debate.

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BBB
The focus of all in the Federal Government in protection against terrorism is in it's self interest. Why? Congress and top government official fly frequently. Naturally, they want to protect air flight.

They don't use public transportation much so they ignore protecting the transportation the public uses. Or at least they could until the London bombings, but they are still only paying lips service to such protection.

They don't live or work close to chemical plants, nuclear facilities or ports. But they do take steps to protect where they do live and work in Washington, D.C. So they pay lip service to requiring mandatory safeguards to these facilities.

If government officials and the congress were personally vulnerable in the areas that the public uses, you can be sure more terrorism protection would given more attention in those areas.

It the same old story of Social Darwinism: I'm protected; the hell with you.

BBB

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Unfortunately, even after the Brownie embarrasment, Bush is continuing to nominate unqualified people to important government/ Homeland Security positions based on cronyism.

General Myers niece is the latest:

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Senators yesterday told the president's choice to lead immigration law enforcement that they still are weighing a plan to reorganize her agency -- and one Republican expressed doubt that she was qualified for the job.
Julie Myers was nominated by President Bush to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency that is charged with hunting down money launderers, sanctions busters and human traffickers and that is the sole enforcer of U.S. immigration laws.
Yesterday, she faced a confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.
"I'm really concerned about your management experience," Sen. George V. Voinovich, Ohio Republican, told her, pointing out that ICE, with 20,000 employees, is the second-largest investigative agency in the federal government.
"I think that we ought to have a meeting with [Homeland Security Secretary] Mike Chertoff ... to ask him ... why he thinks you're qualified for the job," Mr. Voinovich said. "Because based on your resume, I don't think you are."

... Source

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George writes

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Earlier I made the point here that many posters want us to have an intrusive national government that regulates most aspect of our lives, including traditionally local issues of land use, infrastructure and public safety. It is understandable that they should measure the real response to this disaster compared to what they imagine should have been the case if we were governed as they wish.

I have seen that sentiment expressed around the internet frequently in the last few days. I even started a thread to discuss that very thing
HERE

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Oh come on BBB. For a rabble-rousing union type you are OK and I like you. However so many of your assertions above are wildly incorrect that I must respond.

In the first place there is a nuclear power plant very close to Washington at Calvert Point Maryland. In the second, with the prevailing homicide and crime rates in Washington it is hardly fair to say they are insulated from the nations social problems.

Most of the urban public transportation systems in this country were paid for by the Federal government - prominently including the new urban rail systems in Washington, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Denver, Baltimore, Miami and many others.

By the way old Alameda is looking great! Happy as a clam back here.

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George
George, have you moved to the Bay Area?

BBB

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Bush supporters' aftermath thread

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