Orange County Register: It's time for accountability

[question everything]

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

It's time for accountability

(snip)

It is past time for some accountability.

FEMA operatives took charge in New Orleans almost immediately. Some of their actions, however, raise serious questions.

Wal-Mart, according to Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, loaded three trucks with food and water. FEMA, which controlled access to New Orleans, turned them back. A Coast Guard ship invited local authorities to get 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, but FEMA ordered it to rescind the offer. Volunteers from Lafayette, La., with 500 boats, headed for New Orleans to aid in rescue efforts, but FEMA turned them back. Firefighters from Houston, Maryland and elsewhere were turned away by FEMA or assigned to PR work.

This is not to say state and local officials are blameless. New Orleans had an evacuation plan involving enough school and transit buses to evacuate 12,000 people per run, but Mayor Ray Nagin did not use them. State and local authorities kept the Red Cross out of New Orleans in the first days after Katrina.

The FEMA mistakes appear to be due to incompetence, a surprisingly lackadaisical attitude and the slowness with which large government bureaucracies typically make decisions and start acting. It won't solve all those problems, some of which may be endemic to government, but President Bush should make some changes at the top.

(snip)

As much as President Bush values loyalty, it is time, as the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper has urged, to fire Mr. Brown and replace him with someone with experience dealing with large-scale events, who knows how to work with state, local and private-sector volunteers, and can motivate FEMA to get its act together.


http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/2005/09/07/sections/commentary/commentary/article_664274.php

[daninthemoon]

1. Register is usually pretty far right wing.

[question everything]

3. Actually a libertarian, still opposing the war in Iraq

still, interesting that it does point the finger at the top. Most of its readers just blame the mayor, the governor and Democrats in general for the evacuees being poor, in general.

[Ravenseye]

2. Notice how Bush isn't attacked

He "values loyalty" etc.

Sure they're saying he needs to do this and that, but they're not placing any blame on Bush for appointing the college buddy of his election campaign to head FEMA when his prior experience was getting fired from overseeeing horse show judges.

[Im with Rosey]

4. Orange County?

Florida or California?

[question everything]

5. California, sorry

the home of "the O.C." and of the bank for every national Republican candidate.

[onager]

6. The Reg was sort of pre-Libertarian...

Its founder, Ray Hoiles, was a far-right loon who used to regularly scare the bejesus out of his fellow far-right loons. This was back in the Fifties and Sixties.

On the one hand, Hoiles ranted against crazy liberal ideas like child labor laws. ("Give them a pick and shovel and let them get started working!")

On the other, at the very height of the Vietnam War he was insisting that the State had absolutely no right to hold a military draft. To the horror of Pro-War Repubs, he compared the draft to slavery.

He also wanted ALL drug laws scrapped: "The State has no right to prescribe what medicines a citizen can take."

Definitely an interesting character, and a lot more colorful than most of our modern media apparatchiks.

[Im with Rosey]

7. I live in O.C.

South OC, even more conservative. The only thing the register is good for is the crossword puzzles and high school sports!

[MissMarple]

8. The Gazette in Colorado Springs is a Freedom Communications rag.

Sometimes it has straight news, but its editorials and opinion page border on the bizarre. They are driven by ideology and their chosen ideology is ruinous to the best interests of most Americans. They flaunt their "libertarian" views, but they are Republican shills.

[JPZenger]

9. The Aid That FEMA Rejected from Throughout the US

Most of the following was posted under General Discussion, but it is worth repeating here. A partial list of some of the assistance from inside the US that was offered to FEMA, and rejected.

FEMA won't accept Amtrak's help in evacuations
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/84aa35cc-1da8-11da-b40b-00000e2511c8.html

FEMA turns away experienced firefighters
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/5/105538/7048

FEMA turns back Wal-Mart supply trucks
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05blame.html?ex=1283572800&

FEMA prevents Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05blame.html?ex=1283572800&

FEMA won't let Red Cross deliver food
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm

FEMA bars morticians from entering New Orleans
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15147862&

FEMA blocks 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering aid
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/3/171718/0826

FEMA fails to utilize Navy ship with 600-bed hospital on board
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509... ;cset=true
(registration required)

FEMA to Chicago: Send just one truck
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050902dale... (registration required)

FEMA turns away generators
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea.html

FEMA: "First Responders Urged Not To Respond"
http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=18470

That is the actual headline from FEMA's website - "Fire Responders Urged Not to Respond." Here's an excerpt:

"First Responders Urged Not To Respond To Hurricane Impact Areas Unless Dispatched By State, Local Authorities
Release Date: August 29, 2005

WASHINGTON D.C. -- Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response and head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), today urged all fire and emergency services departments not to respond to counties and states affected by Hurricane Katrina without being requested and lawfully dispatched by state and local authorities under mutual aid agreements and the Emergency Management Assistance Compact."

Would-be rescuers cool their heels (FEMA urban search/rescue stuck in Dallas)
-----

Urban Search and Rescue Team Still Waiting in Dallas Hotel

Sept. 6

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/katrina/stories/090605dnmetkatfema.d400626.html

"Since Friday, they have been sitting tight at the luxury hotel with members of five other teams of specialists...

"We've been trying like hell to get out of here," said Battalion Chief Hawkins, one of the Orange County task force leaders."

----
State of the Art Mobile Hospital Sits Marooned in Mississippi
Sep. 5
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/09/04/katrina.sick.redtape.ap/

[deacon2]

10. I am one of 11 proud Democrats in Orange County

We meet on alternate Wednesdays behind the Santa Ana Salvation Army to plan our escapes before "The Great Day of the Rope."

The O.C. Register, when confronted with such a universally recognized cock up such as we're witnessing the Gulf, turns to drooly bloviation and uses unfamiliar terms like "accountability." Now the children of the founder who inherited the paper can feel really grown up and important as they dine in their Lido Island mansions tonight.

We call this scurrilous rag "The Daily Disappointment." And it never fails to, well, disappoint.

[Skittles]

11. oh I see

accountability only involves Mayor Nagin and Michael Brown - come on