September 2005

Stock Up on Water

ArchPundit September 12, 2005 0 Comment

Bull Moose made the suggestion and I agree. Since Brown is gone, it’s unclear who will take his place, but an August 1st Washington Post article suggests Patrick Rohde was being groomed.

Mr. Rhode’s experience with disasters

Before joining FEMA, Mr. Rhode was associate administrator at the U.S. Small Business Administration and White House liaison for the Department of Commerce. His first position with the Bush Administration was as special assistant to the President and deputy director of National Advance Operations, a position he assumed in January 2001.

Previously, Mr. Rhode served as deputy director of National Advance Operations for the George W. Bush Presidential Campaign, in Austin, Texas. His other professional credits include serving in communications and public affairs roles in the Texas Department of Agriculture, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, and Entergy Corporation. Earlier in his career, Mr. Rhode was an anchor/reporter with network affiliated television stations in Alabama and Arkansas.

Let’s hope some priorities are revisited in terms of who should be leading FEMA

My Illinois readers should feel only partially comforted that the Regional Director is actually an emergency management professional because he’s actually holding down two positions. They guy for Missouri is a career fire fighter and at least decently prepared for his spot.

UPDATE: They went with a professional—give credit to the Trib’s article that explored the background of several FEMA higher ups for getting an actual professional in there.

Otis White on Katrina and other cities

ArchPundit September 12, 2005 1 Comment

I hate it when I look up a bunch of stuff and someone did it before me:

It will take months and maybe years to fully comprehend what happened to New Orleans on Aug. 29, as Hurricane Katrina battered the city and the levees were breached. Nothing quite like it has ever happened to a major American city. New Orleans hasn?t merely been evacuated for a week or so; it has, in the words of one headline, been ?left for the dead,? perhaps for months to come. But as we struggle to understand the lessons of Katrina, here are two places to begin: It?s important how we get people out of threatened cities, and it?s equally important how they come back.

Katrina was different from other great hurricanes like Andrew, which devastated Miami in 1992, because the hurricane?s winds and rains did not ravage New Orleans as much as its aftermath: the breaching of the levees, which flooded the city with water that, in some neighborhoods, rose at the rate of a foot a minute. It was the flood, not the wind and rain, that made New Orleans uninhabitable.

Many were shocked to learn that 20 percent of residents did not or could not heed the mayor?s mandatory evacuation order. But people who know about natural disasters weren?t surprised. While most families pack up and leave at first warning, a sizeable number don?t ? because they never hear the warnings, can?t leave due to infirmity or lack of individual transportation, or refuse to go because they fear leaving more than the storm.

Chillingly, in similar circumstances, other cities would not do much better than New Orleans. In the Tampa/St. Petersburg area, disaster experts watched the scenes from Louisiana with foreboding. ?A worst-case evacuation tells us 487,000 people in Hillsborough County [where Tampa is located] alone would have to seek shelter. Out of Pinellas County [St. Petersburg], 550,000 people,? one expert told the Tampa Tribune. ?Between the two counties … we?d put a million people on the road. Those pictures we saw of New Orleans, we?re looking at Tampa.?

And what about Tampa Bay?s aged, infirm and poor? At this point, Tampa wouldn?t do better than New Orleans at getting them out. Reason: It doesn?t know where they are. (There is an evacuation registry that people can sign up for, but relatively few do.)

One thing Tampa and other cities could do better, of course, is identify safe places in the city and have provisions for protecting and feeding people in those shelters. Still, getting people out of their homes and into the shelters with, at most, a two-day warning would be a logistical nightmare. And, again, not all would make even that short journey.

The other great lesson we?ll learn from Katrina will be how to repopulate a city. New Orleans will be rebuilt, of course; culturally and economically, it?s too important not to be. (Among other things, a port near the mouth of the Mississippi is crucial to agriculture and manufacturing. And then there?s the oil and gas industry.) But how many New Orleans residents will return after spending months elsewhere? And when they come back, will they bring their city?s culture and breezy attitude? We?ll know on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2006, when Mardi Gras is held.

Monday 8/29 Interview With Nagin

ArchPundit September 12, 2005 0 Comment

WWL TV did an interview on Monday night that described initial damage. It was devastating to hear. What’s most interesting in the interview are two points–the breach in the 17th Street Levee (remember, the one that didn’t break until after this interview according to Chertoff–but that Nagin knew was a problem during the hurricane). The other issue that really tells part of the problem with FEMA is that by the time the hurricane had passed, there was little time for a visual inspection of the City, yet FEMA did an initial assessment where he got much of the information from including

1) the Twin Spans being destroyed (anchors turned white)
2) Extensive flooding in nearly all parts of the City except at the CBD, Algiers and the French Quarter (both CBD and FQ would later have some flooding)
3) expectation of electricity out for 4-6 weeks
4) no clear path in or out of the City
5) St. Benards in worst shape–total devastation

What has never changed are his three objectives

1) Save Lives
2) Evacuate people–arguing with other parishes—indicates he’s referring to the blockade on the bridge.
3) Pump out water.

Here are some excerpts from his interview for those that don’t want to sit through the video which is about 20 minutes long.

“My heart is heavy tonight, I don’t have any good news to share other than the at some point and time the Federal government will be coming in here en masse. The City of New Orleans is in a state of devastation.”

“This is a briefing I got from a gentleman named Marty who is with FEMA. He’s the Undersec, the Director of FEMA and the FEMA Secretary is coming into town tomorrow along with our Senators and Congressional leaders to do a fly over.

“We have a list from FEMA that is our wishlist of what we want and we are going to continue to work“

“When this FEMA guy came back from his areal view, and we had a map and he started to lay everything out, it suddenly hit everybody, the impact of this awesome, awesome hurricane.

I asked the guy point blank–I said was this the worst he’d ever seen. He said absolutely. Absolutely, it’s the worst situation he’d ever seen. “

“Let me just give you a little bit of good news. Whatever good news that is. We have the highest levels of government in the United States including the President of the United States focused on this issue and ready to send resources. They have told us to put together your wish list. Put together whatever you might need to deal with this and they are basically telling us they will come down and help us rebuild.”

What’s clear is that Nagin was talking to FEMA, and the professional level of FEMA understood how serious this was by Marty saying it was the worse he’d ever seen. Why then didn’t the Head of FEMA and Chertoff know all of this? Furthermore, we know that Nagin made specific requests the day of the hurricane and continued made a second request the next day.

Help Is On the Way

ArchPundit September 12, 2005 4 Comments

Nagin points out continuing problems

One of the refrains about this is that Nagin is no Guiliani. The problem with that comparison is Rudy had TV cameras with him throughout the crisis–Nagin indicates that he’s only had one or two cameras seeking him out during the crisis and that most of his press was when he made himself available for an interview and that TV wasn’t present–maybe one other tv camera that came from time to time. (more video here)

His original update on Monday night was on that indicated a calm man who was doing his best to level with people about the extent of the destruction.

WBRZ has a phone call into from Nagin during the hurricane and talks about the flooding and already knows there are problems with levees though the extent isn’t clear. The 17th Street canal breach was reported during the hurricane.

WWL TV did an interview on Monday night that described initial damage. It was devastating to hear. What’s most interesting in the interview are two points–the breach in the 17th Street Levee (remember, the one that didn’t break until after this interview according to Chertoff–but that Nagin knew was a problem during the hurricane). The other issue that really tells part of the problem with FEMA is that by the time the hurricane had passed, there was little time for a visual inspection of the City, yet FEMA did an initial assessment where he got much of the information from including

1) the Twin Spans being destroyed (anchors turned white)
2) Extensive flooding in nearly all parts of the City except at the CBD, Algiers and the French Quarter (both CBD and FQ would later have some flooding)
3) expectation of electricity out for 4-6 weeks
4) no clear path in or out of the City
5) St. Benards in worst shape–total devastation

What has never changed are his three objectives

1) Save Lives
2) Evacuate people–arguing with other parishes—indicates he’s referring to the blockade on the bridge.
3) Pump out water.

The silliness of the criticisms because he was shrill on Thursday when no one would get the aid into the city that had been promised–yet you don’t see the same guy on Monday, or Tuesday or even Wednesday. How would Guiliani have acted if he hadn’t gotten help over 4 days?

Comparing the two situations where he was, by all accounts, all over the City for days, without press coverage compared to Guiliani who had press with him the entire time is a bit bizarre.

Evacuation Continues to Be Misunderstood

ArchPundit September 12, 2005 1 Comment

While it’s shocking to think that in modern America we’d leave people in a major natural disaster when we have warning, the reality is that there is virtually no method to move over 100,000 people in 72 hours.

The Trib does a decent article, and certainly better than this Florida article.

Holding up Florida as an example opens the question of what are the plans for its major cities.

The interesting question is who gets help out of their home? In all cases, the disabled, but not the average person

Miami-Dade Public transportation takes people to shelters of last resort. One big improvement is the impetus put on hotels that was lacking in New Orleans.

Tampa may have a plan to move people without cars, but the County’s website doesn’t indicate how it is done. As with Miami-Dade there is a special needs registry.

Jacksonville Same as Hillsborough County, no mention of those without cars and only a special needs registry.

And the Florida site for hurricane preparedness only discusses car evacuation.

Despite the claims, in major urban centers, there isn’t any evidence that any city can evacuate more than the special needs population without transportation.

LSU has a review of national preparedness. A few things stick out–Louisiana has a far longer period of evacuation orders than any other state included in the study.

On page 18 you see the use of public transportation doesn’t vary much amongst the states at risk. Public buses aren’t realistic and while the mention of alternatives is there, the problem comes as competing needs for the limited infrastructure are made.

Nagin made the point on Meet the Press that getting drivers is very difficult in a mandatory evacuation.

In the now famous Washing Away series, the problem of counting on buses and other means is pointed out in a bit of detail:

Click on the link below to read that section after the jump.
Read More

It’s a First Step

ArchPundit September 9, 2005 9 Comments

But does anyone really need more evidence that Michael Brown needs to go? You can argue theoretically taht changing agency heads in the middle of a crisis creates problems of continuity, but at this point, ending the continuity of Brown’s reign at FEMA seems one of the first priorities other than continuing to get people out of New Orleans.

Times-Picayune on Suffering and Semantics

ArchPundit September 9, 2005 5 Comments

EDITORIAL: Suffering and semantics

There may be no more ridiculous pairing of words than “voluntary evacuation.” Letting people know they can leave if they want to leave does nothing more than remind them that they live in a free country. But looking back at the events leading up to Hurricane Katrina, it’s clear that the phrase “mandatory evacuation” doesn’t mean anything either. At least not in New Orleans.

The phrase is meaninglessness on two levels: According to a television interview Mayor Ray Nagin gave the Saturday night before the storm, he didn’t think he had the legal authority to order a mandatory evacuation or the ability to enforce it. City attorneys were scrambling to find out whether he could order everybody out, he said, and if doing so would make him liable for the many thousands of people who had no means of escape. The next morning he issued New Orleans’ first-ever order of evacuation. Next door, Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard maintained that despite his desire to do so, he didn’t have the legal authority to require his residents to leave.

To Mayor Nagin’s credit, he made it clear on that Saturday that everybody needed to get out and that citizens shouldn’t wait around to hear the word “mandatory” before deciding to leave. They might never hear it. He urged those who could to check on their neighbors, especially the elderly and infirm, and to use every conveyance possible to escape the wrath of the approaching storm.

The mayor was a voice of calm when others around him were succumbing to hysteria. But when it came time to get pushy, he did that, too. Even so, Mayor Nagin should have had his legal questions answered long before a storm was in the Gulf of Mexico. A mandatory evacuation had never been ordered, but the question of its legality should have been asked and answered years ago. What a mayor can do as a hurricane approaches should have been institutional knowledge, passed like a baton from one administration to the next.

It ought to have been passed down from governor to governor, too. The mayor’s powers may have been limited, but as the chief executive of the state, Gov. Kathleen Blanco had more muscle. State law allows her to not only “direct and compel the evacuation of all or part of the population from any stricken or threatened area within the state,” but also to utilize “all available resources of the state government and of each political subdivision of the state as reasonably necessary to cope with the disaster or emergency.”

The Friday before the storm Gov. Blanco declared a state of emergency, and that could have served as a prerequisite for more forceful action. Imagine every school bus in South Louisiana packed with evacuees and heading to higher ground. Imagine the vans, SUVs and cars owned by state and local agencies being devoted to the same purpose. In retrospect, the mayor should have used his bully pulpit to demand more action from the state. But he ultimately didn’t have the authority to take control of all those vehicles. The governor did.

Elected officials assumed that when the big one hit New Orleans, it would catch thousands upon thousands of people still in the city. Some wouldn’t be able to afford a way out. Others who could afford to do so wouldn’t either. Not a whole lot could have been done for that second group. The fact that even now there are people vowing to stay in their flooded homes is proof that some deaths were inevitable.

Louisiana was never going to be able to handle a disaster of Katrina?s scale without substantial outside help. If the federal response had not been so woefully inadequate, the storm would not have exacted such a horrific toll on New Orleans.

There are multiple things wrong with the above–not the article the actions. Broussard and Nagin both hadn’t thought through what a mandatory evacuation was and what they could do in the face of a hurricane. That should be in the ‘break in case of emergency’ kit with Standard Operating Procedures for just such an event. Asking On Saturday was too late and frankly, Broussard should have just gone ahead. But more importantly is that a state should have clear laws on exactly what local officials can do.

Given the coordination issues revolving around Contraflow out of New Orleans, it’s questionable to me as to why local leaders call for such evacuations and not the Governor.

The other thing that is fascinating is the editorial board that lived through the disaster is far more positive towards Mayor Ray Nagin than the national press. They are circumspect about Blanco and I imagine we’ll read more on their views of her soon.

(link fixed)

Normal Programming Will Resume Shortly

ArchPundit September 9, 2005 1 Comment

Yeah, I know, there’s a lot of Illinois stuff to cover and I’m hoping to catch up on it over the weekend. Now that the immediate issues surrounding Katrina are not as critical, I’ll be reducing coverage of it very soon–though it’ll certainly be an issue for some time. While this is primarily a blog that concentrates on Illinois, I always have written about some national issues and the last two weeks have diverted my attention. And for those who want to me to eat some words, you can read this post

I’m way, way behind on e-mail and some phone calls so I still have your notes, but it’ll be a bit until I can catch up.

Huh?

ArchPundit September 9, 2005 5 Comments

There’s a lot of good background in the NYT article here, but this is really the puzzler:

According to the administration’s senior domestic security officials, the plan failed to recognize that local police, fire and medical personnel might be incapacitated.

Even in a limited disaster like the WTC attack, lots and lots of first responders were killed–how the hell you can call something a plan that doesn’t account for local first responders being incapacitated is….well as stupid as having Mike Brown as head of FEMA.

The frustrating paragraph is here though:

While combat troops can conduct relief missions without the legal authority of the Insurrection Act, Pentagon and military officials say that no active-duty forces could have been sent into the chaos of New Orleans on Wednesday or Thursday without confronting law-and-order challenges.

I’m pretty sure you could drive some trucks over the Crescent City Connector, take the first exit and drop off food and water. Or if you really didn’t think that was an option, drop it off the damn bridge. I’m very aware the Louisiana National Guard could have done the same thing—but the Feds could have too….

While I’m far from convinced Chertoff had even basic control over DHS during this ordeal, this seems like a no-brainer

Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, has suggested that active-duty troops be trained and equipped to intervene if front-line emergency personnel are stricken. But the Pentagon’s leadership remains unconvinced that this plan is sound, suggesting instead that the national emergency response plans be revised to draw reinforcements initially from civilian police, firefighters, medical personnel and hazardous-waste experts in other states not affected by a disaster.

The federal government rewrote its national emergency response plan after the Sept. 11 attacks, but it relied on local officials to manage any crisis in its opening days. But Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed local “first responders,” including civilian police and the National Guard.

At a news conference on Saturday, Mr. Chertoff said, “The unusual set of challenges of conducting a massive evacuation in the context of a still dangerous flood requires us to basically break the traditional model and create a new model, one for what you might call kind of an ultra-catastrophe.””

Isn’t the above situation obvious though? 9-11 was a very limited attack in many ways–shouldn’t incapacitated local first responders be assumed in such situations?