MAPPING THE KATRINA FEMA RESPONSE IN LOUISIANA

Honey, why do you hate America?

just beating the rush.....

Crikey!

It all boils down to geography. You can't expect Bush
to know all 50 states by heart, now can you?

Probably a little of each. Brown probably didn't have as much control as he might have before FEMA was put under DHS. But goodness, was anybody in charge? That's all I want to know.

When declaring a state of emergency for only specific counties within a state, YES, I expect someone to pull up a map just like I did and list the counties in danger, NOT the complete opposite ones.

And, if he knew which ones to include that were all in the NORTHERN part of the state, he must have had some kinda map in front of him, right?

I agree. Bureaucratic homicide is what it is.

You give him too much credit squinney. Do you honestly think
he can read a map? Bush is incompetent all the way - in that he's
shown persistance.

Speaking of timelines, i received this via email yesterday:


CHRONOLOGY.... Here's a timeline that outlines the
fate of both FEMA and flood control projects in New
Orleans under the Bush administration. Read it and
weep:

January 2001: Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, a crony
from Texas, as head of FEMA. Allbaugh has no
previous experience in disaster management.

April 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daniels announces
the Bush administration's goal of privatizing much
of FEMA's work. In May, Allbaugh confirms that FEMA
will be downsized: "Many are concerned that federal
disaster assistance may have evolved into both an
oversized entitlement program...." he said.
"Expectations of when the federal government should
be involved and the degree of involvement may have
ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level."

2001: FEMA designates a major hurricane hitting New
Orleans as one of the three "likeliest, most
catastrophic disasters facing this country."

December 2002: After less than two years at FEMA,
Allbaugh announces he is leaving to start up a
consulting firm that advises companies seeking to do
business in Iraq. He is succeeded by his deputy,
Michael Brown, who, like Allbaugh, has no previous
experience in disaster management.

March 2003: FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level
position and folded into the Department of Homeland
Security. Its mission is refocused on fighting acts
of terrorism.

2003: Under its new organization chart within DHS,
FEMA's preparation and planning functions are
reassigned to a new Office of Preparedness and
Response. FEMA will henceforth focus only on
response and recovery.

Summer 2004: FEMA denies Louisiana's pre-disaster
mitigation funding requests. Says Jefferson Parish
flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue: "You would think
we would get maximum consideration....This is what
the grant program called for. We were more than
qualified for it."

June 2004: The Army Corps of Engineers budget for
levee construction in New Orleans is slashed.
Jefferson Parish emergency management chiefs Walter
Maestri comments: "It appears that the money has
been moved in the president's budget to handle
homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose
that's the price we pay."

June 2005: Funding for the New Orleans district of
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is cut by a record
$71.2 million. One of the hardest-hit areas is the
Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project,
which was created after the May 1995 flood to
improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St.
Tammany parishes.

August 2005: While New Orleans is undergoing a slow
motion catastrophe, Bush mugs for the cameras, cuts
a cake for John McCain, plays the guitar for Mark
Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and
continues with his vacation. When he finally gets
around to acknowledging the scope of the unfolding
disaster, he delivers only a photo op on Air Force
One and a flat, defensive, laundry list speech in
the Rose Garden.

A crony with no relevant experience was installed as
head of FEMA. Mitigation budgets for New Orleans
were slashed even though it was known to be one of
the top three risks in the country. FEMA was
deliberately downsized as part of the Bush
administration's conservative agenda to reduce the
role of government. After DHS was created, FEMA's
preparation and planning functions were taken away.

Actions have consequences. No one could predict
that a hurricane the size of Katrina would hit this
year, but the slow federal response when it did
happen was no accident. It was the result of four
years of deliberate Republican policy and budget
choices that favor ideology and partisan loyalty at
the expense of operational competence. It's the
Bush administration in a nutshell.

Henry Breitrose
Professor of Communication
Stanford University

Still waiting to hear the word IMPEACHMENT. IMPRISONMENT too. Bureaucratic homicide is EXACTLYa what this is.

I'm suggesting it was more than just four years of deliberate policy and budget choices.

It's hard to look at those maps and think otherwise.

How does a President declare an emergency in the whole wrong side of a state?

same way he blames 9/11 on the wrong country....

That timeline looks familiar Eoe, I think I posted a link somewhere else, but only by the link and not the text. Anyway, it is a to-weep timeline.

On this map thing, it's too peculiar and sad, hard to absorb.

On the fifteen hundred children, I'm off to read. Another day, more bad.

Agreed, Osso. But on the map thing, I think it's something we need to absorb sooner rather than later.

BTW, I saved a gif of the parishes from the internet. I then went to "paint" to color code the parishes based on the documentation from the sources cited.

I'm no genius, so if I can figure this out it's surprising no one else has yet. If you know of anyone that has, please let me know. Maybe they have an explanation different from mine.

I can't get my mind around it being intentional, but can't quite fathom it as a mistake, like a typo, or a cut and paste mistake, especially with the LA governor's 'clarification' or wake-up notice.

Squinney
Squinney, great research! Thanks.

I did the following research in response to Foxfyre's challenge (The Bush Aftermat thread) which some of you may not visit and reposting it here for your info. She challenged New Orlean's governor's reluctance to allow federalizaton of Lousiana state guard forces until the federal troops were in place to relieve them. Why, because they would not have been allowed to continue to carry weapons. Those weapons were needed to control any illegal activity.

---BBB

Foxfyre wrote: BBB I'll hunt up a source as soon as you provide the requested information re the National Guardsmen not being allowed to carry rifles if they are under federal authority.

CITATION: There was, and is still, an important distinction between the state and national guards. The state guard has a domestic law enforcement role (posse comitatus). That disappears when its members are called to federal duty. U.S. law prohibits the Army or Air Force from engaging in domestic law enforcement.

CITATION: Posse comitatus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

ADDITIONAL CITATIONS: The U.S. Supreme Court decided the case in June 1990. It ruled that, "Article I's plain language, read as a whole, establishes that Congress may authorize members of the National Guard of the United States to be ordered to active federal duty for purposes of training outside the United States, without either the consent of a State Governor or the declaration of a national emergency." Moreover, "since the original gubernatorial veto was not constitutionally compelled, its partial repeal by the Amendment is constitutionally valid".

However, the Court did decide that governors retained the right to reject deployment if they could prove that it significantly affected the ability of the state guard to carry out its state activities. "The Minnesota unit, which includes about 13,000 members, is affected only slightly when a few dozen, or at most a few hundred, soldiers are ordered into active service for brief periods of time. Neither the State's basic training responsibility, nor its ability to rely on its own Guard in state emergency situations, is significantly affected. Indeed, if the federal training mission were to interfere with the State Guard's capacity to respond to local emergencies, the Montgomery Amendment would permit the Governor to veto the proposed mission."

The Court added, "The Governor and the United States agree that if the federalization of the Guard would interfere with the State Guard's ability to address a local emergency, that circumstance would be a valid basis for a gubernatorial veto".

The Court also noted, "Congress has provided by statute that in addition to its National Guard, a State may provide and maintain at its own expense a defense force that is exempt from being drafted into the Armed Forces".

How has the massive mobilization of the Guard in recent months affected the states? Skilled Guards are in high demand for overseas missions and homeland security. For example 70 percent of enhanced brigades and 75 percent of divisional combat battalions, frequently called on by state governors to respond to natural disasters, were deployed overseas between September 2001 and March 2004.

National Guard forces are increasing their role in Iraq because the active-duty Army is not large enough. When the next rotation of soldiers moves into Iraq late in 2004, up to 50 percent could be Guard and Reserve, compared to 39 percent in July and 25 percent in 2003. This means even more Guard members will not be available to respond to natural disasters or terrorist threats. Both the conservative Heritage Foundation and the liberal Center for American Progress agree that the National Guard must be available to assist with homeland security even if it requires expanding the size of the standing Army and rethinking the Total Force concept.

Governors of both political parties are wondering if they will be short-handed in cases of domestic emergencies. Major General Timothy Lowenberg, Commander of the Washington State National Guard, after attended a meeting of meeting of governors and Pentagon officials, said, "There are absolutely no partisan patterns to the concerns being raised. They are being articulated by governors of both parties."

Some states, like Texas and Nevada, have only a modest share (12 percent) of their guard currently stationed overseas. But a number of states have much higher proportions. New Jersey has 60 percent of its state Guard forces on federal active duty. More than 40 percent of New York's Guard has been alerted or mobilized for federal duty, meaning neither they nor their units' equipment are available for homeland security. In Washington 62 percent of the state's Army Guard soldiers have been deployed; in Idaho the number is 80 percent.

Virginia, North Carolina and the rest of the southeastern coast are facing hurricane season, a time when the Guard traditionally plays a crucial role in clean up and relief efforts. The center of the country, especially Missouri, is concerned about flooding. Western states worry about wildfires. Oregon's National Guard, for example, has half its usual number of firefighters because of federal call-ups.

There is also a financial impact on states from the call up of the guard. In Montana and California the Guard has withdrawn its Black Hawk helicopters from the job of responding to small fires that can flare into forest fires, forcing the states to contract with private companies to do the job. More than 130 Arizona prison guards are serving overseas, contributing to problems in crowded prisons. Tennessee has seen its rural police and sheriff's departments depleted by call-ups.

If the massive posting of reservists and guard members abroad continues it could spawn renewed lawsuits. At least one has been filed, in August of 2004, by a sergeant in the Army National Guard who viewed as unconstitutional the Army's "stop-loss" orders that prevent reservists from leaving the military when their enlistment periods end.

It is also possible that states could once again refuse to send guards abroad, citing the 1990 Supreme Court decision that gave them that right if deployment would "significantly affect" their ability to satisfy their traditional functions.

CONTROL OF THE MILITARY

It wasn't intentional but it damn sure wasn't a mistake. More like irresponsiblity or a simple lack of concern.

eoe


Do you think the Bush administration has a "help wanted" sign on the White House door? Proof Reader needed; less than minimum wage offered, but free donuts provided. Must past literacy test by reading "My Pet Goat."

BBB

I can see the first time being a mistake, putting the least needing parishes - as opposed to the most - on the list though cut and paste error; can only imagine the second as not reading the governor's wakeup notice, or reading it and not understanding.

As far as the map goes, that's pure incompetence and so NOT surprising. He's a moron but it seems as if the people around him could have skirted that catastrophe. I don't understand how Ms. Governor more or less spelled it out for him, parish by parish, and he still didn't get it? Like osso, I just can't get my mind around it being intentional.

But then, maybe he IS the anti-christ after all???