Then Came Rita

Reading up on PDiddie's blog, he is fine. He had relatives in Jasper, but they made it through okay.

Just getting caught up on this thread. I'm glad to hear all our friends made it through alright.

Beaumont Paper Finds Federal Storm Failure in Texas
Katrina Redux? Beaumont Paper Finds Federal Storm Failure in Texas
By Editors & Publishers Staff
Published: September 25, 2005 9:50 PM ET
NEW YORK

In Beaumont, Texas, claims that federal relief agencies learned their lessons from Hurricane Katrina and are on the ball in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita are apparently ringing hollow. The Beaumont (Tex.) Enterprise reported tonight that disaster response coordinators in the area hard hit by Rita say they are seeing the same foot-dragging federal response this weekend witnessed two weeks ago in New Orleans and Mississippi.

Jefferson County Judge Carl Griffith and other local leaders, "haggard after days of almost non-stop work with little sleep, pleaded with the federal government to get itself in a higher gear," the paper said. Griffith said he wanted to return services to residents who remain but that "it seems like they can't figure out how to get it done."

"There's a drastic shortage of generators in Beaumont to provide emergency power," Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said. "There are generators at Ford Park, and FEMA is withholding their release. They want to finish their damage assessment."

Jefferson County officials had a plan to distribute Meals-Ready-to-Eat from local fire stations, the paper said. However, Griffith said the MREs, like the generators, were being withheld by FEMA.

"They won't let us have them," Griffith said. "They said we had to go through the state - which we already did - to get them. I'm going over there (to Ford Park) now to figure this out."

Looters have struck in town, but had to be let go because there is no safe place to jail them right now. Officials have asked FEMA to provide temporary jail quarters.

The Enterprise has not published a print edition this weekend but provided PDFs of a scaled-down version on its still-active Web site. It included a note there Sunday: "We will publish a home edition as soon as we possibly can."

Griffith said he's sending fire officials to local stores to get supplies, including propane to cook with. "We're going into stores and taking food out," Griffith said. "We're going to do what we got to do to get the job done....

"There's just a breakdown in the state and federal government that you saw in Katrina and you've seen in other disasters," Griffith said. He said he hopes to see a change "so at least the next people that have to go through it ... will have some kind of process that makes sense that can immediately deliver what people need."

Find this article at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001180626

I was picking up on some of that on local TV interviews, BBB.

Edgar
Bush and company will have to walk a fine line trying to shift blame to state and local governments for the fiasco. After all, most of them are "his people." Will be interesting to watch how the dance around this.

BBB

BBB: How do you square that article up with the one entitled, "Response to Rita illustrates how government failed after Katrina" (the thrust of which praises the Federal response to Rita), which you posted just 13 minutes later over on the "Katrina-Bush and the political questions begin" thread? LINK

Of course the purpose of the article there was to show the failures of Katrina, and the purpose of this article was to show the failures of Rita.



There aren't enough eye-rolling emoticons in the world to express myself properly.

The local and state leaders in Texas were careful to do everything the ones in Louisiana were accused of not doing. Still we see the same old screw-ups. If I am not mistaken, they never finished the job in Florida, either.

Tico


Tico, I wish A2K would add a LIFE PRESERVER emoticon to those available. That way, you could post it on all of your posts to save or excuse the Bush Administration.

Life Preserver

BBB

Re: Tico


If I could add an emoticon for you, I would suggest you include this one with all your posts:




I don't know what it is, or what it's doing, but it seems strangely appropriate.

One of the biggest screw-ups is the failure to move people out of Houston in a timely manner. If the storm had stayed on track to Galveston, and not weakened substantially, we would have seen a tragedy to rival New Orleans.

Sorry for the diversion, edgar. Maybe BBB can post her anti-Bush political views on another thread.

... perhaps one in the Politics forum?

A plague on everybody's house--except the houses in Houston and the rest of the Gulf Coast.

Monday will be the big day for my daughter. Unless of course a day sooner becomes that day. Doc says everything looks good.

Edgar--

Will this be induced labor? Are you babysitting the older kids? Or do you just sit and worry?

It will be induced labor, to keep her birthday from being so close to her sister's.

This will al be begun during my work day. I won't be able to go to the hospital until after five. Mrs edgarblythe will babysit the kids.

Tell her I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Me too.

Edgar
Edgar, has baby Chloe arrived yet?

BBB

Baby Chloe came into the world at just about noon. 7 lbs, 12 ozs. I always forget how tiny a newborn is until I see one. All is well. Baby and Mom will be home tomorrow. I was too tired to visit long. Will visit again tomorrow.