Monday, September 12, 2005
Two sides to every story
My husband and I have been having an ongoing difference of opinion on how well disaster relief has gone at the federal level, how it is being reported etc. So it was interesting to read this 'cause it sorts supports my point of view. I'm not saying I know who is right and who is wrong. I will admit that I probably have a biased point of view. At least for now the point should be to help with immediate needs and with long term rebuilding. In the longer run it is more important to learn from what went well and what might have gone better, hopefully without too much partisan finger pointing.
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Actually, my opinion is that Bush failures are almost entirely in the area of knowing he needed to bend over backwards and deal with symbolic issues and appearances so as to deflect criticism.
So yeah, he did fine, but he failed to look like he did fine.
So yeah, he did fine, but he failed to look like he did fine.
My lurking Mother in Law sent me this new article via email as a comment/addition to my post, she thought it too long for a comment and is probably right but I am sharing it anyway because I found it interesting.
Fox News' Brit Hume: First, the focus of all of the attention has been FEMA,
Federal Emergency Management Agency, what is FEMA?
Fox News' Major Garrett: Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2,500 full
time employees, 4,000 stand by employees. The mission statement very simple:
prepare, respond, help, recover, reduce risk. How does it do it? By
coordinating with state and local entities and other groups The Salvation
Army, Red Cross, dedicated to helping the needy when disaster strikes.
Hume: So FEMA is relatively, it isn't very labor intensive it mostly works
through other agencies?
Garrett: It works through other agencies. But it has been moved into the
Department of Homeland Security. And in this crisis, It is a bit a victim of
its own bureaucratic boastfulness. Earlier this year the new national
response plan released by the Department of Homeland Security promised
this - "seamless integration of the federal government when an incident
exceeds local and state capabilities." In the minds of many Americans, this
one did. And FEMA, at least initially, in the minds of some, did not respond
enough.
Hume: The words seamless don't exactly spring to mind. But look, they are
down there, The Red Cross, for example, is there.
Garrett: Standing by, ready.
Hume: Standing by, ready. Why didn't FEMA send The Red Cross into New
Orleans when we had all of the people there on that bridge overpass and
elsewhere. Why not?
Garrett: First of all, no jurisdiction. FEMA works with The Red Cross, The
Salvation Army and other organizations but it has no control to order them
to go one place or the other. Secondarily, The Red Cross was ready. I got
off the phone with one of their officials. They had a vanguard, Brit, of
trucks with water, food, hygiene equipment, all sorts of things ready to go
where? To the Superdome and convention center. Why weren't they there? The
Louisiana Department of Homeland Security told them they could not go.
Hume: This is isn't the Louisiana branch of the federal Homeland Security?
This is --
Garrett: The state's own agency devoted to the state's homeland security.
They told them you cannot go there. Why? The Red Cross tells me that state
agency in Louisiana said, look, we do not want to create a magnet for more
people to come to the Superdome or convention center, we want to get them
out. So at the same time local officials were screaming where is the food,
where is the water? The Red Cross was standing by ready, the Louisiana
Department of Homeland Security said you can't go.
Hume: FEMA does, presumably at some point, have some jurisdiction over some
military forces. Of course, the first responders there are the National
Guard. Why didn't FEMA send the National Guard in? You heard that cry from
many people.
Garrett: FEMA does not have jurisdictional control over any state's National
Guard, only the governor does. The governor in this case, Kathleen Blanco, A
democrat, did use the Louisiana National Guard for some purposes, did not
deploy them in massive numbers initially and they were not used to move any
of these relief organizations in and they could have been for the very same
reason I talked about earlier, the state decided they didn't want the relief
organizations where the people needed it most because they wanted those
people to get out.
Hume: But even today we know that Governor Blanco has now decided that a
mandatory evacuation may not be necessarily after all. But we can go into
that later. What about the use by her of the National Guard to impose law
and order during the early looting and all of that?
Garrett: She had a choice, as I am told. She could have taken up the offer
from FEMA to federalize all of the activities in Louisiana, meaning that
FEMA would be in control of everything. Not only law enforcement, but
everything else. She declined to give them that authority. So essentially
FEMA was trapped between two bureaucracies. One the Department Of Homeland
Security where many of its decisions have to be reviewed and in some cases
approved, and a recalcitrant state bureaucracy that wasn't going to give
them the authority they needed to make things happen, among them, the
National Guard.
Hume: What about this evacuation problem? It's clearly was something that
New Orleans faced, knew it faced to some extent.
Garrett: And the city [sic] of Louisiana. They have a whole plan that
contemplates dealing with an evacuation in the effect of a hurricane three,
four or five. Their own plan says, 100,000 residents minimum from the New
Orleans area will have to be evacuated. This plan makes it clear ...
Hume: You mean, can't get out on their own.
Garrett: These people will have not have their own vehicles. Not only that,
It stipulate that these people are disproportionately poor, sick and in need
of special transportation assistance. Brit, I think in these circumstances,
bureaucratic language is important. Let's go to this. This is what the state
says: "the Department of Health and Hospitals has the primary responsibility
for providing medical coordination for all of the special-needs populations,
i.e. hospital and nursing home patients, persons on home health care,
elderly persons and other persons with physical or mental disabilities."
Brit, I don't think you can come up with a better description of the people
we saw, day in and day out, at the Superdome and the convention center, than
this very population that the state's own plan said needed to be transported
to a safe place and provided services.
Hume: Apparently no plan, no provision, no facility for doing that.
Garrett: No facility for doing that. Not only that, those who reviewed the
plans the state put together before were critical of it. In 2002 the New
Orleans Times Picayune had a whole story about this saying no one believes
the evacuation plans are possible, feasible or will be carried out. They
proved to be accurate.
Hume: It sounds like the state will have much to answer for in the
investigation coming before Congress as well as the federal government.
Garrett: It appears to be.
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Fox News' Brit Hume: First, the focus of all of the attention has been FEMA,
Federal Emergency Management Agency, what is FEMA?
Fox News' Major Garrett: Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2,500 full
time employees, 4,000 stand by employees. The mission statement very simple:
prepare, respond, help, recover, reduce risk. How does it do it? By
coordinating with state and local entities and other groups The Salvation
Army, Red Cross, dedicated to helping the needy when disaster strikes.
Hume: So FEMA is relatively, it isn't very labor intensive it mostly works
through other agencies?
Garrett: It works through other agencies. But it has been moved into the
Department of Homeland Security. And in this crisis, It is a bit a victim of
its own bureaucratic boastfulness. Earlier this year the new national
response plan released by the Department of Homeland Security promised
this - "seamless integration of the federal government when an incident
exceeds local and state capabilities." In the minds of many Americans, this
one did. And FEMA, at least initially, in the minds of some, did not respond
enough.
Hume: The words seamless don't exactly spring to mind. But look, they are
down there, The Red Cross, for example, is there.
Garrett: Standing by, ready.
Hume: Standing by, ready. Why didn't FEMA send The Red Cross into New
Orleans when we had all of the people there on that bridge overpass and
elsewhere. Why not?
Garrett: First of all, no jurisdiction. FEMA works with The Red Cross, The
Salvation Army and other organizations but it has no control to order them
to go one place or the other. Secondarily, The Red Cross was ready. I got
off the phone with one of their officials. They had a vanguard, Brit, of
trucks with water, food, hygiene equipment, all sorts of things ready to go
where? To the Superdome and convention center. Why weren't they there? The
Louisiana Department of Homeland Security told them they could not go.
Hume: This is isn't the Louisiana branch of the federal Homeland Security?
This is --
Garrett: The state's own agency devoted to the state's homeland security.
They told them you cannot go there. Why? The Red Cross tells me that state
agency in Louisiana said, look, we do not want to create a magnet for more
people to come to the Superdome or convention center, we want to get them
out. So at the same time local officials were screaming where is the food,
where is the water? The Red Cross was standing by ready, the Louisiana
Department of Homeland Security said you can't go.
Hume: FEMA does, presumably at some point, have some jurisdiction over some
military forces. Of course, the first responders there are the National
Guard. Why didn't FEMA send the National Guard in? You heard that cry from
many people.
Garrett: FEMA does not have jurisdictional control over any state's National
Guard, only the governor does. The governor in this case, Kathleen Blanco, A
democrat, did use the Louisiana National Guard for some purposes, did not
deploy them in massive numbers initially and they were not used to move any
of these relief organizations in and they could have been for the very same
reason I talked about earlier, the state decided they didn't want the relief
organizations where the people needed it most because they wanted those
people to get out.
Hume: But even today we know that Governor Blanco has now decided that a
mandatory evacuation may not be necessarily after all. But we can go into
that later. What about the use by her of the National Guard to impose law
and order during the early looting and all of that?
Garrett: She had a choice, as I am told. She could have taken up the offer
from FEMA to federalize all of the activities in Louisiana, meaning that
FEMA would be in control of everything. Not only law enforcement, but
everything else. She declined to give them that authority. So essentially
FEMA was trapped between two bureaucracies. One the Department Of Homeland
Security where many of its decisions have to be reviewed and in some cases
approved, and a recalcitrant state bureaucracy that wasn't going to give
them the authority they needed to make things happen, among them, the
National Guard.
Hume: What about this evacuation problem? It's clearly was something that
New Orleans faced, knew it faced to some extent.
Garrett: And the city [sic] of Louisiana. They have a whole plan that
contemplates dealing with an evacuation in the effect of a hurricane three,
four or five. Their own plan says, 100,000 residents minimum from the New
Orleans area will have to be evacuated. This plan makes it clear ...
Hume: You mean, can't get out on their own.
Garrett: These people will have not have their own vehicles. Not only that,
It stipulate that these people are disproportionately poor, sick and in need
of special transportation assistance. Brit, I think in these circumstances,
bureaucratic language is important. Let's go to this. This is what the state
says: "the Department of Health and Hospitals has the primary responsibility
for providing medical coordination for all of the special-needs populations,
i.e. hospital and nursing home patients, persons on home health care,
elderly persons and other persons with physical or mental disabilities."
Brit, I don't think you can come up with a better description of the people
we saw, day in and day out, at the Superdome and the convention center, than
this very population that the state's own plan said needed to be transported
to a safe place and provided services.
Hume: Apparently no plan, no provision, no facility for doing that.
Garrett: No facility for doing that. Not only that, those who reviewed the
plans the state put together before were critical of it. In 2002 the New
Orleans Times Picayune had a whole story about this saying no one believes
the evacuation plans are possible, feasible or will be carried out. They
proved to be accurate.
Hume: It sounds like the state will have much to answer for in the
investigation coming before Congress as well as the federal government.
Garrett: It appears to be.
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