Need help with reply to repub. LTTE re Katrina!

[CTyankee]

They are at it again! This letter writer in today's New Haven Register is reviving the old RNC talking point: that Bush warned Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin about the severity of the storm but they waited 24 hours before doing anything.

I know this is a lie, and it doesn't even make sense, but I don't have a good source to cite. Of course the repub letter writer didn't have a source either, but I want to do him one better.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

1. This might help.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434/site/newsweek/

[azureblue]

2. I have a diary

This attempt to shift the blame has been going on ever since Katrina hit, and even Brown, in the hearings yesterday put the finger back on Bush, and refuted the attempts to blame Blanco & Nagin. But the important refutation is the fact that Bush twice cut the money to rebuild the levees, and he was being warned by everyone of how bad the disaster could be if the levees broke. And,a s an added bonus, here is a comparison of what other presidents did and what Bush did when Andrew hit Florida. And, to help refute, Blanco released to the Feds every scrap of paper related to JKatrina, but Bush refuses to do so, citing national security. At the end of this is what Blanco said & did& another time line



PRELUDE- THE BUDGET CUTS
June 7, 2001
Bush signed his massive $1.3 trillion income tax cut into law—a tax cut that severely depleted the government of revenues it needed to address critical priorities. Bush’s first budget introduced in February 2001 proposed more than half a billion dollars worth of cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers for the 2002 fiscal year. Bush proposed providing only half of what his own administration officials said was necessary to sustain the critical Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project (SELA)—a project started after a 1995 rainstorm flooded 25,000 homes and caused a half billion dollars in damage. Similarly, less than two weeks after Bush signed his tax cut on June 7, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that “despite warnings that it could slow emergency response to future flood and hurricane victims, House Republicans stripped $389 million in disaster relief money from the budget.”
Mike Parker, 1999 Republican nominee for Mississippi governor, was rewarded for his Republican service by President Bush, who appointed him to head the Army Corps of Engineers on June 7, 2001.

June 23-37, 2001
Times–Picayune publishes series on effects on hurricane hitting S. Louisiana
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/?/washingaway/

February 2002
The president unveiled his new budget, this one with a $390 million cut to the Army Corps. The cuts came during the same year the richest 5 percent (those who make an average of $300,000 or more) were slated to receive $24 billion in new tax cuts. The cuts were devastating. The administration provided just $5 million for maintaining and upgrading critical hurricane protection levees in New Orleans—one fifth of what government experts and Republican elected officials in Louisiana told the administration was needed. Likewise, the administration had been informed that SELA needed $80 million to keep its work moving at full speed, but the White House only proposed providing a quarter of that. These cuts came even though the potential cost of not improving infrastructure was known to be astronomical. A widely-circulated 1998 report on Louisiana’s insurance risks said a serious storm could inflict $27 billion worth of damage just to homes and cars—and that didn’t include industrial or commercial property. Local insurance executives estimated in 2002 that the total damage would be closer to $100 billion to $150 billion—estimates that now look frighteningly accurate.
When Mike Parker headed to Capitol Hill for annual budget hearings in February 2002, he couldn’t hide the truth. Under questioning, he admitted that “there will be a negative impact” if the President’s budget cuts were allowed to go forward. The White House fired Parker within a matter of days.

February 2, 2004
White House on February 2 released a budget with another massive cut to infrastructure and public works projects—this time to the tune of $460 million. As the Denver Post later reported, “the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control project sought $100 million in U.S. aid to strengthen the levees holding back the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, but the Bush administration offered a paltry $16.5 million.” The Chicago Tribune noted that the Army Corps of Engineers had also requested $27 million to pay for hurricane protection upgrades around Lake Pontchartrain—but the White House pared that back to $3.9 million.
Gaps in levees around Lake Pontchartrain, which were supposed to be filled by 2004, would not be filled because of budget shortfalls. Corps officials told the Times-Picayune in April “that the lack of money will leave gaps in the structure, weakening its effectiveness and pushing back its completion date.” Worse, because budget cuts had been compounding for three years straight, “even after all the gaps are closed, the levee must settle for several more years until it reaches its final height.” By June, the newspaper reported that “for the first time in 37 years, federal budget cuts have all but stopped major work on the New Orleans area’s east bank hurricane levees.”
“We are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us,” Jefferson Parish emergency manager Walter Maestri said at the time, desperately begging the Bush administration to reevaluate its budget decisions. As he noted, the budget cuts meant that levee gaps would accumulate and “we’ll end up so far behind that we can’t catch up. … And the further behind we get, the more critical the safety of the city becomes.” But almost no one in Washington was listening. Ten days after the Times-Picayune story, the U.S. House passed a $155 billion White House-backed bill to cut corporate taxes. The Senate had passed a similar bill the month before. Republican lawmakers from the Gulf Coast—who purported to be concerned about infrastructure budget cuts—all supported the new tax cut.

September 4, 2004
HURRICANE FRANCES HITS FLORIDA:
FROM THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE November, 2005
“Imagine if, in advance of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of trucks had been waiting with water and ice and medicine and other supplies. Imagine if 4,000 National Guardsmen and an equal number of emergency aid workers from around the country had been moved into place, and five million meals had been ready to serve. Imagine if scores of mobile satellite-communications stations had been prepared to move in instantly, ensuring that rescuers could talk to one another. Imagine if all this had been managed by a federal-and-state task force that not only directed the government response but also helped coordinate the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and other outside groups.
This requires no imagination: it is exactly what the Bush administration did a year ago when Florida braced for Hurricane Frances. It was two months before the presidential election, and Florida's twenty-seven electoral votes were hanging in the balance. It is hardly surprising that Washington ensured the success of "the largest response to a natural disaster we've ever had in this country." The president himself passed out water bottles to Floridians driven from their homes.”

July, 2005
FEMA WARNED OF SHORTAGES & PROBLEMS IN REPORT
FEMA's Brown Was Warned Early of Shortages
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Former FEMA director Michael Brown was warned weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit that his agency's backlogged computer systems could delay supplies and put personnel at risk during an emergency, according to an audit released Wednesday.
An internal review of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's information-sharing system shows it was overwhelmed during the 2004 hurricane season. The audit was released a day after Brown vehemently defended FEMA for the government's dismal response to Katrina, instead blaming state and local officials for poor planning and chaos during the Aug. 29 storm and subsequent flooding.
The review by Homeland Security Department acting Inspector General Richard L. Skinner examined FEMA's response to four major hurricanes and a tropical storm that hit Florida and the Gulf Coast in August and September 2004. It noted FEMA's mission during disasters as rapid response and coordinating efforts among federal, state and local authorities.
"However, FEMA's systems do not support effective or efficient coordination of deployment operations because there is no sharing of information," the audit found. "Consequently, this created operational inefficiencies and hindered the delivery of essential disaster response and recovery services," it said.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/09/28/national/w145107D24.DTL&type=printable

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A COMPARISON OF PREVIOUS HURRICANE RESPONSES:

President Nixon -- August 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.

President Clinton -- September 1999, Hurricane Floyd -- Cat-3, was bearing down on the Carolinas and Virginia. President Clinton was in Christchurch, New Zealand - meeting with President Jiang of China. He made the proclamation that only Presidents can make and declared the areas affected by Floyd "Federal Disaster Areas" so the National Guard and Military can begin to mobilize. Then he cut short his meetings overseas and flew home to coordinate the rescue efforts. All one day BEFORE a Cat-3 hit the coast.

President Bush (41) -- August 1992 -- was in the midst of a 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.


Blanco defends actions in storm
From the Times Picayune:

“The Blanco administration released the mountain of documents to U.S. House and Senate committees investigating the response to Katrina on Friday evening, with the governor saying in a statement that they will show the hard work of her administration during its greatest crisis.
"These documents will demonstrate what I have said for several months -- that dedicated employees of the state of Louisiana worked tirelessly and effectively during this period to save many thousands of lives," Blanco said in the written statement.
To a large degree, the massive document dump was Exhibit A in Blanco's public relations defense of her performance during and after the storm. Since the days after the Aug. 29 hurricane, she has been portrayed as indecisive and bumbling in the face of the nation's worst natural disaster. But the documents, especially a 33-page timeline she constructed, take pains to show her as engaged and assertive as she tries to cope with false promises and intransigence from the federal government.

Asking for the Guard
On Sept. 2, five days after Katrina made landfall, Blanco fired off a letter urging President Bush to bring the 256th Louisiana National Guard Brigade home from Iraq to help along with a slew of reinforcements to help with everything from firefighting to fishing the dead from the water.
The waters had stopped rising in New Orleans, but tens of thousand of people stranded by the flood were isolated in the Superdome, the Convention Center and on highway overpasses pleading for help.
But according to an e-mail from a White House staffer five days later, the letter never arrived.
Margaret Grant sent an e-mail to Blanco's office Sept. 7 asking that the Sept. 2 letter be resent.
"We found it on the governor's Web site but we need 'an original,' for our staff secretary to formally process the requests she is making," Grant wrote.
Other documents show Blanco's growing frustration with federal response. Nothing was more of a flash point than the lack of buses to rescue people from New Orleans.
The day of the storm, Aug. 29, Blanco met for the first time with former FEMA chief Mike Brown, who promised the state ample supplies and said that his agency had "500 buses on standby, ready to be deployed," according to the Blanco timeline.
In an initial review by reporters of the thousands of e-mails, notes and other documents that Blanco's staff kept during that time period, there is no documentation of Brown's pledge. But a Blanco spokeswoman said the timeline is based, in part, on the governor's recollection of what happened in the first hectic days of the storm.
On Aug. 31, when the FEMA buses don't arrive, Blanco reiterated her need to federal officials for transportation to get the thousands of people out of the Superdome, Convention Center and off the Interstate 10 overpass. That day she issued an executive order to commandeer private buses to "cope with the disaster." Ultimately 1,500 would be seized, and about 800 used, the document said.
In a conversation with White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Blanco on August 31 tells him that 500 buses will not be sufficient and that the federal government should try to provide as many as 5,000. Later that day in a conversation with President Bush, Blanco "reiterates her frustration about the FEMA buses," according to the timeline.
While state officials are obtaining buses, the governor's staff creates a plan to send the buses in convoys to evacuate people, according to the timeline. The first substantial number of FEMA buses do not begin to arrive in north Louisiana -- many hours away from New Orleans -- until "just before midnight" on August 31.

Looking for buses
The e-mails and quick Blackberry exchanges between members of Blanco's staff demonstrate that her administration was also struggling to find buses and get them to where they were needed.
The first mention of buses among her top advisers comes from Chief of Staff Andy Kopplin, who sends out a missive to many in the executive ranks. "We need you to find buses that can go to N.O. asap," Kopplin wrote.
In an e-mail, Kim Hunter Reed, Blanco's policy director, complained on the afternoon of August 31 that she needs to know where to send the needed assistance.
"I am getting these calls to (sic) and I have buses and water but can't get word on where and how to send," wrote Reed, who in a separate note that same day also said she needed direction from the Louisiana State Police and the American Red Cross.
In her timeline, Blanco noted that the news reports of violence escalating in New Orleans made it difficult to recruit bus drivers to take on the rescue missions.
According to the timeline, Blanco says she learns late Wednesday, Aug. 31, that "a number of the promised FEMA buses are finally crossing into N. Louisiana, 7 or 8 hours away from New Orleans."
The documents also reveal a sense of desperation on the governor's part. On Sept. 3, she penned a letter to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asking for help. In it she requests police reinforcements and four helicopters.
The cache of documents contain what appear to be talking points drawn up for Blanco by her staff, possibly in anticipation of her testimony before congressional committees in the weeks after the storm.
Already on the defensive, the talking points can be seen as Blanco's first effort to turn public opinion about her performance her way.
"I requested massive federal assistance in letters to President Bush on Aug. 27 and Aug. 28 -- before the storm's landfall," she said in one. "I spoke with President Bush on Sunday (Aug. 28) and Monday (Aug. 29) and told him I needed everything he had. I believed FEMA officials who told me that every federal resource was at my disposal. I believed this meant every single available resource."
Later on in the talking points document, she responds to a hypothetical question about what she did wrong in response to Katrina.
"I believe my biggest mistake was believing FEMA officials who told me that the necessary federal resources would be available in a timely fashion," she said.”

The Original can be viewed on line at:
http://www.nolarises.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=728
And at
http://www.nola.com/katrina/view.ssf


ANOTHER KATRINA TIMELINE:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/katrina-timeline.php

[blue cat]

3. I got in a fight about the same thing

with some woman on a beauty pageant board after Katrina, and I just went all crazy calling her hateful for blaming the poor and that is not what Jesus would have done, etc. She went on to tell about the all the black friends that she has, yadayadayada... I just got digusted and bored and moved on, but it was fun to make her get so defensive.