View Full Version : Feds not fast enough?



MadMonk
09-12-2005, 10:43 AM
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05254/568876.stm


It is settled wisdom among journalists that the federal response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was unconscionably slow.

"Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever during a dire national emergency," wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in a somewhat more strident expression of the conventional wisdom.

But the conventional wisdom is the opposite of the truth.

Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:

"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."

For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.

Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.

So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world history.

I write this column a week and a day after the main levee protecting New Orleans breached. In the course of that week:

More than 32,000 people have been rescued, many plucked from rooftops by Coast Guard helicopters.

The Army Corps of Engineers has all but repaired the breaches and begun pumping water out of New Orleans.

Shelter, food and medical care have been provided to more than 180,000 refugees.

Journalists complain that it took a whole week to do this. A former Air Force logistics officer had some words of advice for us in the Fourth Estate on his blog, Moltenthought:

"We do not yet have teleporter or replicator technology like you saw on 'Star Trek' in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your worthless communications degree while the grown-ups actually engaged in the recovery effort were studying engineering.

"The United States military can wipe out the Taliban and the Iraqi Republican Guard far more swiftly than they can bring 3 million Swanson dinners to an underwater city through an area the size of Great Britain which has no power, no working ports or airports, and a devastated and impassable road network.

"You cannot speed recovery and relief efforts up by prepositioning assets (in the affected areas) since the assets are endangered by the very storm which destroyed the region.

"No amount of yelling, crying and mustering of moral indignation will change any of the facts above."

"You cannot just snap your fingers and make the military appear somewhere," van Steenwyk said.

Guardsmen need to receive mobilization orders; report to their armories; draw equipment; receive orders and convoy to the disaster area. Guardsmen driving down from Pennsylvania or Navy ships sailing from Norfolk can't be on the scene immediately.

Relief efforts must be planned. Other than prepositioning supplies near the area likely to be afflicted (which was done quite efficiently), this cannot be done until the hurricane has struck and a damage assessment can be made. There must be a route reconnaissance to determine if roads are open, and bridges along the way can bear the weight of heavily laden trucks.

And federal troops and Guardsmen from other states cannot be sent to a disaster area until their presence has been requested by the governors of the afflicted states.

Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.

The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. The first ones arrived Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.

A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?

PUGalicious
09-12-2005, 12:30 PM
Perhaps this was better suited in the "Politically Speaking" forum rather than the "In The News" since the "article" cited is an opinion column rather than straight news piece.

Here is a news article (http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12528233.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp) from 8/31/05 that examines the FEMA response:


WASHINGTON - The federal government so far has bungled the job of quickly helping the multitudes of hungry, thirsty and desperate victims of Hurricane Katrina, former top federal, state and local disaster chiefs said Wednesday.

The experts, including a former Bush administration disaster response manager, told Knight Ridder that the government wasn't prepared, scrimped on storm spending and shifted its attention from dealing with natural disasters to fighting the global war on terrorism.

The disaster preparedness agency at the center of the relief effort is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which was enveloped by the new Department of Homeland Security with a new mission aimed at responding to the attacks of al-Qaida.

"What you're seeing is revealing weaknesses in the state, local and federal levels," said Eric Tolbert, who until February was FEMA's disaster response chief. "All three levels have been weakened. They've been weakened by diversion into terrorism."

In interviews on Wednesday, several men and women who've led relief efforts for dozens of killer hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes over the years chastised current disaster leaders for forgetting the simple Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared.

> more (http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12528233.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp)


Since you prefer opinion pieces, here's an opinion of one blogger (http://billmon.org/archives/002125.html).


It's instructive, on that score, to compare the current response to Hurricane Katrina (in which the Three Stooges apparently have seized control of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in a bloodless coup) with the administration's efforts on behalf of the voters of Florida following last year's triple storms -- Charley, Frances and Ivan.

True, the 2004 disasters didn't completely take down a major metropolitan area by turning its urban center into a bowl of **** soup. But the difference in the federal goverment's performance before, during and after those storms had passed is stlll rather striking. It appears there's something special about years divisible by two -- and particularly every other year divisible by two -- that can inspire amazing feats of bureaucratic energy and competence, at least in large, populous swing states.

>more
(http://billmon.org/archives/002125.html)

Didaskalos
09-12-2005, 12:39 PM
I think it is worth the time to look at the response of the Federal government to other Hurricanes such as Frances. The question remains, could they have responded in like to Katrina? If not, what was the difference?

Frances:
Massive Federal Response Underway For Hurricane Frances (http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease_print.fema?id=13745)

The Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has positioned a powerful list of disaster response personnel, equipment and supplies to help those who are displaced or suffer losses after Hurricane Frances continues to move across Florida.

As the power and direction of the hurricane changes as the storm crosses the mainland, residents of states in the hurricane’s path are urged to take measures to protect lives and property. Wind and water damage is likely to be extensive. FEMA officials are urging residents to follow evacuation orders given by local officials, including those currently in effect for much of Florida’s East Coast.

State, local and volunteer agencies - the first responders in any disaster - have moved quickly to be ready for a major storm. Homeland Security’s FEMA and the U.S. Coast Guard, along with its partner agencies, Health and Human Services, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Defense, are prepared with personnel, equipment and supplies to respond to state requests for federal help.

Preparedness measures are underway in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee. The FEMA Hurricane Liaison Team remains on duty at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Federal and state emergency management agencies charged with response activities continue to track the storm and hold daily video teleconferences to plan and coordinate Hurricane Frances response.

The advance preparations include:

FEMA’s National Emergency Operations Center, Emergency Support Team in Washington, D.C. and Region Four Regional Operations Center in Atlanta, Ga. are operating around the clock, coordinating the pre-positioning of assets and responding to state requests for assistance.

FEMA has deployed an Advanced Emergency Response Team to the Florida State Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee to facilitate state requests for assistance. In addition, three rapid needs assessment teams have been pre-deployed to Florida.

FEMA Emergency Response Teams are positioned in Orlando to coordinate response efforts with the FEMA headquarters and the state Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee.

An Advanced Emergency Response Team and a Rapid Needs Assessment team have also been deployed to the Georgia State Emergency Operations Center to provide support as necessary.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, at FEMA's request, is coordinating the staging of 100 truckloads of water and 100 truckloads of ice at operational centers in Florida.

A first shipment of 30,000 tarps is en route to Atlanta, Ga., to be pre-staged for delivery to areas affected by Frances once the storm has cleared.

FEMA is working to provider 10 trailers of generators at the request of Florida that will be used to provide power to critical facilities affected by the hurricane. Generators will be staged at Warner Robbins Air Force Base.

Four Urban Search and Rescue Teams are deployed to Florida — two in Miami and two in Jacksonville. Four teams are on alert.

Two Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMAT) have been deployed to Florida to support medical facilities and hospitals that are not fully operational following the storm. Two additional DMATs are staged in Atlanta, three are enroute to Atlanta, and one Veterinary Medical Assistance Team is on standby. An additional four DMATs have been placed on alert, The DMATs are comprised of doctors, nurses and medical technicians trained to handle trauma, pediatrics, surgery and mental health problems. DMATs bring truckloads of medical equipment and supplies with them.

Five pharmaceutical caches, containing emergency medical supplies, are being pre-positioned, and are currently en route to Atlanta and Tampa.

FEMA's Mobile Emergency Response Services (MERS) communications staff and equipment are available to provide telephone, radio and video links in support of response and recovery efforts. About 100 MERS personnel and about 75 vehicles – including Mobile Emergency Operations Center (MEOCs) equipped vehicles and Mobile Radio Vans (MRVs) to provide radio capability have been assigned to support Hurricane Frances response and recovery operations.

FEMA teleregistration centers are fully staffed, ready and able to register as many as 20,000 disaster assistance applications per day for affected residents in declared counties. The Internal Revenue Service is providing additional operators to support FEMA’s teleregistration operations, which are currently operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

FEMA contract inspectors are ready for activation, with surge capability providing for up to 15,000 inspections per day within 14 days of activation. FEMA is working with the General Services Administration to analyze vacancy rates of various safe housing options (including apartments, homes, RVs, time shares, mobile homes, hotels and motels) as part of pre-planning temporary housing strategies for those whose homes are severely damaged or destroyed.

The American Red Cross has opened more than 250 shelters in Florida that housed approximately 15,500 evacuees last night. Additional shelters have been opened in Georgia and Alabama in case need arises. In North Carolina, the Red Cross is manning state welcome centers to help evacuees with rest stop ministrations.

On March 1, 2003, FEMA became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. FEMA’s continuing mission within the new department is to lead the effort to prepare the nation for all hazards and effectively manage federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident. FEMA also initiates proactive mitigation activities, trains first responders, and manages the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration.

PUGalicious
09-12-2005, 06:37 PM
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05254/568876.stm
Media Matters (http://mediamatters.org/items/200509120009) offers the following comments on the above referenced article:

Jack Kelly column littered with Katrina falsehoods

In a September 10 column (http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050910/COLUMNIST14/50910047), Toledo Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Jack Kelly put forth numerous falsehoods and dubious statements in defense of the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina. Kelly's column was quickly embraced by the conservative media: On September 12, it was posted (http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2005/09/12/20050912_131400.htm) on the Drudge Report and read aloud by Rush Limbaugh on his nationally syndicated radio program.

Claim #1: Federal government couldn't have had "preposition[ed] assets" near New Orleans ready to immediately assist relief effort

Kelly sought to defend the federal government's much-criticized response to the hurricane by citing an anonymous "former Air Force logistics officer" who claimed on the weblog Molten Thought (http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://moltenthought.blogspot.com/2005/09/katrina-aftermath-choke-lwm-moment-749.html) that "[y]ou cannot speed recovery and relief efforts up by prepositioning assets (in the affected areas) since the assets are endangered by the very storm which destroyed the region." Kelly then adopted the point, declaring that "Navy ships sailing from Norfolk [Naval Shipyard in Virginia] can't be on the scene immediately."

In fact, a Navy ship -- the USS Bataan -- was "preposition[ed]" off the Louisiana coast ready to aid Katrina victims but was deprived of needed guidance by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as the Chicago Tribune reported (http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509040369sep04,1,4144825.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true) on September 4.

Moreover, the Bush administration did not send a hospital ship to New Orleans from Baltimore until four days after the levees were breached. Kelly wrote that the Army Corps of Engineers had by September 10 "begun pumping water out of New Orleans." But James Lee Witt, FEMA director in the Clinton administration, said (http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12528233.htm) that both efforts should have happened much sooner: "n the 1990s, in planning for a New Orleans nightmare scenario, the federal government figured it would pre-deploy nearby ships with pumps to remove water from the below-sea-level city and have hospital ships nearby."

Claim #2: Federal government "pretty much met standard time lines" in initial response to Katrina; responded with "unprecedented" speed in following days

Kelly cited a whitewash of the federal government's delayed response by Florida Army National Guardsman Jason van Steenwyk, who claimed that the "federal government pretty much met its standard time lines" in responding to the crisis.

According to the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) December 2004 National Response Plan (http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRPbaseplan.pdf) (NRP), when responding to a catastrophic incident, the federal government should immediately begin emergency operations, even in the absence of a clear assessment of the situation. Because a "detailed and credible common operating picture may not be achievable for 24 to 48 hours (or longer) after the incident," the NRP's "Catastrophic Annex (http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRP_FullText.pdf#page=341)" states that "response activities must begin without the benefit of a detailed or complete situation and critical needs assessment."

In fact, it wasn't until August 31, two days after the hurricane struck, that DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff declared Katrina an "Incident of National Significance," "triggering for the first time a coordinated federal response to states and localities overwhelmed by disaster," according to the Associated Press (http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083102020.html).

Kelly also cited Steenwyk's claim that the federal response to Katrina "during the 72-96 hour" period was "unprecedented" and "faster" than all other recent storms, including Hurricane Andrew. But, as CJR Daily has noted (http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.cjrdaily.org/archives/001809.asp), [i]Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr., whose house was damaged by Andrew, had a different recollection in a September 9 Herald op-ed (http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/12597108.htm):

The day after I crawled from the wreckage of my home in 1992, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was there with water. Shortly thereafter came low-interest loans and other forms of help.

By contrast, a woman who saw me conducting interviews in Bogalusa, La., seven days after Katrina struck marched up and demanded to know if I was, finally, the man from FEMA because her house was split in two and she and her husband and children and grandchildren were sleeping on the porch.

Claim #3: "The levee broke Tuesday morning"

Kelly falsely claimed that flooding first began in New Orleans on August 30, writing that "[t]he levee broke Tuesday morning." While it is unclear exactly which levee Kelly was referring to, "major levee breaks" first occurred on "the morning of Monday, Aug. 29," as The Wall Street Journal noted (http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112649152397237699,00.html) (subscription required) on September 12. The New Orleans office of the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning at 8:14 a.m. Monday, saying 'a levee breach occurred along the industrial canal at Tennessee Street,'" according to the Journal.

As Media Matters for America has documented (http://mediamatters.org/items/200509080002#chertoff), a weblog of the New Orleans Times-Picayune -- dated August 29, 2 p.m. CT -- noted that "City Hall confirmed a breach of the levee along the 17th Street Canal at Bellaire Drive, allowing water to spill into Lakeview." This initial report on the Times-Picayune weblog was followed throughout the afternoon and evening of August 29 by reports of other levee breaks and massive flooding.

Claim #4: There were "roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans" when Katrina hit

In claiming that there were "roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses" that New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin could have used to evacuate his city before Hurricane Katrina hit, Kelly repeated a falsehood that apparently originated (http://mediamatters.org/items/200509120005) in a September 6 column by Washington Times editor-in-chief Wesley Pruden. In fact, there were far fewer buses in New Orleans at the time of the hurricane than Kelly claimed.

According to a September 5, 2003, article in the Times-Picayune, "The [Orleans Parish school] district owns 324 buses but 70 are broken down." In addition, a Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development profile of the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA), last updated May 5, notes that RTA owned 364 public buses, bringing the total of the city's public transit and school buses to fewer than 700 (assuming the fleet of school buses has not been dramatically increased since 2003) -- far fewer than the 2,000 Kelly claimed.

A recent report (http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/national/nationalspecial/04reconstruct.html?ex=1126670400&en=1a6b442d513d947b&ei=5070&pagewanted=print) by The New York Times suggests that the number of school buses in New Orleans has not dramatically increased. The Times reported on September 4 that Louisiana emergency planners believed it would take as many as 2,000 buses to evacuate the elderly and disabled residents of New Orleans in the event of a catastrophic hurricane like Katrina but that this was "far more than New Orleans possessed."

Claim #5: National Guardsmen took time to arrive because governors of afflicted states didn't request them fast enough

Kelly erroneously suggested that another reason the federal relief effort was delayed was because "[National] Guardsmen from other states cannot be sent to a disaster area until their presence has been requested by the governors of the afflicted states."

In fact, as Media Matters has noted (http://mediamatters.org/items/200509080001), according to Department of Defense officials, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour had requested additional Guard personnel before the storm hit. And, as the Associated Press reported (http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/katrina_national_guard) on September 3, Blanco accepted an offer for additional troops from New Mexico the day before the hurricane hit, but that help was delayed by paperwork needed from Washington.