The Irony of Government Response to Disasters.

[babylonsister]

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=05&year=2010&base_name=the_irony_of_government_respon

The Irony of Government Response to Disasters.


There's a saying about the Republican party: When they're out of power they argue that government is incompetent and corrupt, and then when they get power they set about to prove it. So failures of government like George W. Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina end up as lessons conservatives use to demonstrate not that we need more effective government, but that government can't do anything right, and therefore...we should elect more Republicans. It would be nice if this argument was met with howls of laughter, but it isn't, in large part because of what we tend to remember and what we tend to forget.

Frequent TAPPED contributor Robert Farley reminds us (via Matt Yglesias) that the Haiti earthquake -- remember that? - was actually a success for the Obama administration (and obviously for the many other governments and NGOs that are still working to restore the country). For all the problems Haiti still faces, they haven't descended into the kind of chaos and mass post-earthquake deaths many feared. The result? Everyone will forget about it soon, if they haven't already:

The Obama administration’s response to the Haiti earthquake, in my view, has been a resounding success for responsible, capable governance. No one will remember that in six months. Bush’s response to Katrina will endure in the political memory for decades. On the one hand this is (politically) good for progressives, given that conservative efforts to gut governance tend to result in horrible disasters. On the other hand, because policy and execution failures stick in the mind longer than successes, it’s difficult to convince the general public of the importance of a responsible approach to government.

Lots of people are now asking whether the Gulf oil spill is going to be Barack Obama's Katrina. Obviously, the two situations share little in common other than the involvement of the city of New Orleans; for instance, over 1,800 people died in Katrina (according to this report from the National Hurricane Center). One other key difference is that there is only so much even the most competent government officials can do about the spill at the moment, while there were lots and lots of things the administration should have done but didn't during and after Katrina.

Nevertheless, it seems that the better job the Obama administration does with this and future disasters, the less it will matter in the public's perception of what government is capable of.

-- Paul Waldman

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

1. The sad part is that it is precisely due to Nixon, post-Watergate that led to

this current sentiment against government. Every single time Americans elect Republicans, the Republicans deliberately run it into the ground. They get into government to ruin government, to destroy it from within. That way, they can turn around and point the finger at government itself. So, once they destroy government and Democrats are elected to clean up the messes that Republicans left behind, oftentimes Democrats have to resort to unpopular policies, like raising taxes or enhancing governmen to address the mess. And because Americans have been indoctrinated--I would argue BRAINWASHED--to hate government, you'll have Democrats themselves running away from their responsibilities. Democrats then lose elections as a result. It's a vicious cycle. And looks like Americans haven't yet learned their lesson if it is the case that they plan to thrust Republicans right back into office. Sad.

[political_Dem]

7. +10000

[KT2000]

2. Government or contractors?

I think that this hybrid of private contractors and government has broken our response to disasters in this country.
Obama is in charge of a conglomeration of private companies that are contracted to respond to disasters. In the bush admin, Katrina, they were sending volunteers, such as firefighters, away and allowing access to contractors only. Our response to disasters now includes honoring contractual agreements that have to do with profits not saving people.

We really need to have a clear understanding of how privatization has affected our readiness to respond.

[Jennicut]

12. Gov contractors like KBR messing up the soilder's water, remember that?

[Zoeisright]

3. Who would unrecc this? It's the goddamned truth.

Apparently some people have wandered over here from knuckle-dragging land.

[jeanpalmer]

4. "One other key difference

is that there is only so much even the most competent government officials can do about the spill at the moment, while there were lots and lots of things the administration should have done but didn't during and after Katrina."

Here's something a competent government official could have done that probably would have averted most of the damage from the spill.

If U.S. officials had followed up on a 1994 response plan for a major Gulf oil spill, it is possible that the spill could have been kept under control and far from land. The problem: The federal government did not have a single fire boom on hand.

The "In-Situ Burn" plan produced by federal agencies in 1994 calls for responding to a major oil spill in the Gulf with the immediate use of fire booms.

But in order to conduct a successful test burn eight days after the Deepwater Horizon well began releasing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf, officials had to purchase one from a company in Illinois.

A single fire boom being towed by two boats can burn up to 1,800 barrels of oil an hour, Bohleber said. That translates to 75,000 gallons an hour, raising the possibility that the spill could have been contained at the accident scene 100 miles from shore.

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/fire_boom_oil_spill_raines.html

What do you call people who can't follow their own plan and fail to have available the essential piece of equipment necessary to contain the oil spill? Incompetent is the word that comes to mind. It's sad to contemplate that this spill could have been contained with the purchase of a $200,000 piece of equipment.

[babylonsister]

5. Jean, you need to read more and get off the limbaugh talking points...

http://mediamatters.org/research/201004300049

Limbaugh falsely claimed Obama waited eight days to deal with Gulf oil spill

And try this on:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/03/AR2010050304346.html

[jeanpalmer]

10. Read your linked article

There's a difference between "activity" and actually containing the problem. There's a lot of activity, but the oil is still spreading. The booms on the shoreline have actually blown onto the shore the last I read.

The article I linked shows how the government failed to implement its own plan for oil spills in the Gulf, and as a result the oil has spread. "The 'In-Situ Burn' plan produced by federal agencies in 1994 calls for responding to a major oil spill in the Gulf with the immediate use of fire booms."
The government didn't even have even one fire boom on hand to implement the plan. and yet the fire boom was the essential piece of equipment. They should have had 5 or 6 of them. That is the height of incompetence. And now it's taking extra days to borrow fire booms from all over the world.

And yes it all falls back on Barack Obama. On the first day, he should have asked to see the plan for containing the oil spill. "Do we have a plan. I want to see it. Has it been implented yet? Why not? Do we have the fire booms?" These are just standard things done by a CEO in that kindof a situation. Apparently his people, like the Coast Guard, did some things that are not effective, but they never tried to implement their own plan. That's incompetence at Obama's level.

That has nothing to do with Limbaugh. Don't bring out one of your whipping boys to create a false diversion here. The right wing had nothing to do with the failure to implement the government's plan and have the proper equipment in place. That falls squarely on Obama and his subordinates.

[ieoeja]

11. You can't do that in seven foot waves. (nt)

[Supersedeas]

6. Repigs would kill FEMA and have Louisiana and Miss. clean up gulf w/local militia

[Cha]

8. And, there will be more and more

disasters from Mother Nature for the Gov to deal with..especially if we don't do anything about man made climate change.

The Obama admin did an excellent job on responding to the Earthquake in Haiti and to the BP oilspill in the Gulf of Mexico.

[Phx_Dem]

9. The irony is rich. n/t