Have other presidents issued emergency declarations BEFORE disaster?

[Armstead]

Bush just claimed his signing a state of emergency before Katrina was unprecidented by a president.

Truth or Lie?

[iamjoy]

1. Irrelevant

declaring it a state of emergency and then sitting on your butt for five days negates the point.

Making that call and then immediately kicking aid into high gear, that is the point.

[FloridaPat]

5. But they "dodged the bullet". Amazing how only * and company saw

that.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. That may have been said within the first 12-24 hours after Katrina hit,

but once the levees broke, responsible reporting began to trickle in. First CNN, then MSNBC. I don't know when Fox jumped on the bandwagon, but if there was a delay with Fox, it might explain why the White House took so long to understand the seriousness of the issue.

[Armstead]

7. Not irrelevant at all

It matters if it is a blatant lie.

I don't know if it is. My question was honest.

[ET Awful]

8. It is a blatant lie, see my post below. n/t

[HereSince1628]

2. Decisions to withhold assistance while bickering over authority is

unprecedented, too.

[ET Awful]

3. Complete fabrication.

Clinton declared an emergency and flew back from New Zealand the day before Hurricane Floyd hit to coordinate the response: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/446419.stm

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/31/23028/9836

[FloridaPat]

4. I believe every big hurricane is declared a disater before they hit.

It's about the only disaster that can be predicted.

[never_get_over_it]

6. I think he has done it before himself - eom

[Walt Starr]

9. He signed them before the hurricanes last year

So he's LYING!

[never_get_over_it]

10. Besides doesn't this make him look like even a bigger dumb ass

he just admitted that the hurricane was declared a disaster before it hit yet it too FEMA 4 to 5 days to start doing anything meaningful

[Coexist]

11. Clinton's response to Floyd

http://www.democrats.com/node/5958

it won't let me copy and paste for some reason.

[Kerry fan]

17. FLDem5

Click on the "printer friendly version" at the bottom of the article. It will let you copy there.

[mcscajun]

12. LIE -- and here's the proof

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/446419.stm

Nixon and Bush (41) took simiilar actions for other hurricanes.

Someone else here at DU posted this, but I can't find the original post, so I got this from a site that "borrowed" the post:

In September 1999, Hurricane Floyd -- a category 3 -- was bearing down the Carolinas and Virginia.

President Clinton was in Christchurch, New Zealand - meeting with President Jiang of China ... he cut short his meetings overseas and flew home to coordinate the rescue efforts. This all one day BEFORE a Cat-3 hit the coast.

How about own father during Hurricane Andrew? Once again, President Bush (41) -- August, 1992 -- was in the midst of a brutal campaign for re-election. Yet, he cut off his campaigning the day before and went to Washington where he martialed the largest military operation on US soil in history. He sent in 7,000 National Guard and 22,000 regular military personnel, and all the gear to begin the clean up within hours after Andrew passed through Florida.

In August of 1969 when Cat-5 Hurricane Camille hit roughly the same area as Katrina, President Nixon had already readied the National Guard and ordered all Gulf rescue vessels and equipment from Tampa and Houston to follow the hurricane in. There were over 1,000 regular military with two dozen helicopters to assist the Coast Guard and National Guard within hours after the skies cleared.

[preciousdove]

13. Jeb Bush declared Marshall Law in FL a week before 911;Dubya reads...n/t

[Avalux]

15. REMEMBER:

"It's not what they say, it's what they do."

It's irrelevant if he declared a state of emergency before Katrina struck. Appropriate action was not taken.

[Armstead]

16. What is relevant is if he is lying about it now