Screaming Penguin

Michael Brown is an ass hat. Putting a lawyer in charge of something like that is ridiculous. But, in all fairness, local and state governments are told that they should be prepared to wait 48-72 hours before federal aid becomes available and they should be prepared to do things themselves until that time. I'm sorry, but LA and NO local officials should take a majority of the blame for this one.

I will agree that LA and NO officials should take much, yes a majority, of the blame on this one. I dont fault FEMA here nearly as much as most of the rest of the world seems to be (which means I agree with Heimann and speaker Hastert, something is seriously amiss ;)). However, my contention is that LA and NO officials should have had far better emergency mitigation and management plans, they appeared to have basically none of that. I do NOT fault them for the maintenance of the levees stuff. Yes I read the article and understand the point about local bonds, but the amount of money cut in a single year by the feds was more than "bonds" could have handled, and yes the local levee maint board was asleep at the wheel as well, but the primary charge for the flood control is the Corps of Engineers. I have heard several claims lately, and that article makes a reference to it as well, that "environmentalists" did not want the levees maintained. Thats complete specious horseshit. Its true that some sportfishing groups did not want certain levee changes, but that hardly is the same thing as the attempted blame on "environmentalists" (yeah the BASS association is the same thing as the "environmentalists" - sure that makes total sense). The credit for not maintaining the levees at the end of the day has to go directly to George W. Bush, the Dept of Homeland Security and the Army Corps of Engineers (in that order). The corps will fall on their swords for the President, but lets face it, gutting the Corps funding and redirecting things to HSD and changing around FEMA and reducing its power (again something I think can be called good, so long as you ADMIT it and get other authorities and agencies ready to cope with the reduced role) was a major player in this.

Your points are all valid and the environmental thing clears up more and more as you look into it (the so called pansy ass communist "environmentalists" wanted rationale and logical things that would have helped yes the environment and cost money to do, none of their ideas put the city at greater risk, for example never did any legitimate environmental cause express any views that would have questioned levee building to protect people (none that I can find anyway)). As to LA and NO officials though, I just think the buck stops with YOU if its YOUR city. The "plans" they had sucked and they should have gotten people OUT of there, any by OUT I mean out of the city, not into the Superdome. If that was the FEMA designated shelter then yeah FEMA gets more credit than I thought, I mean clearly every prediction said it was possible that the city would have 20 feet of water for months, and that services would be out, so what in the hell way anyone thinking recommending people go to the dome? Unless they had a plan to get them all out the next day - e.g. unless it was just a "get out of the immediate" storm thing, because certainly any "plan" that had people living in the dome, or staying anywhere in the city for that matter, for any length of time, which would obviously be the case in such a flood, is/was not much of a plan.

I agree with most of that I just dont think is ALL FEMAs fault. The government broke down on ALL levels. I mean sure the Superdome was a good place to get out of the wind, but after that, next day, you gotta get the people the hell out of there, its not a long term living place. And you cant just rely on FEMA to do that, or if suppose you do, it better be a FORMAL PLAN to do so. Where is the formalized plan done 10/20/50 years ago and drilled on every year since which shows the evacuation to a temp area, and then if storm is bad enough, out the next day to a more permanent area? How could NO do that? A city flotilla, a set of amphibious vehicles, a raised transit system designed for just such an event to get people 35 miles north of the city (a Disney monorail - obviosuly built to hurricane standards and with its own power system, and contingencies to get it re-rolling quickly after a storm), so on. Maybe all my ideas are bullshit, but thats 2 seconds worth of trying to answer the "how" question, surely emergency managers and professionals and kabillions of dollars could have come up with something. And we all damn well knew the flooding was a possibility (despite tjhe President on GMA the other morning saying "I don't think anyone could have anticipated the breach of the levees." And yes, props to Texas. (I went to school in Eastern TX right next to LA, Nacogdoches, I am somewhat familiar with both states from past lives as well.)

Agreed to the Dow procedures. Thats exactly what I mean. I have relatives who have worked for Exxon for years (and for that matter lots of other large corporations) and yes they all have plans and actual drills - for all sorts of such contigencies. Sure as hell would be nice to get "non political" people in important positions, man that would be great.