A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Incompetence

Feds commandeer buses and send people to the Convention Center around noon on the 1st.

12:38 P.M. – (AP): Two French Quarter hotels says federal officials have foiled their plans to hire buses to ferry guests to higher ground.

The general manager of the Astor Hotel at Astor Crowne Plaza says the hotels teamed to hire ten buses to carry some 500 guests.

But Peter Ambros says federal officials commandeered the buses, and told the guests to join thousands of other evacuees at the New Orleans convention center.

One man says he and others had paid $45 a seat for the buses, and that they were “totally stunned” when the buses never arrived. Another woman said the crowd had waited 14 hours for the buses. She says the idea of walking to the convention center scared her because of reports of looting.

The woman says it appears Louisiana officials have forgotten about tourists, and are just intent on getting their own residents out.

Michael Chertoff claims that “thousands of people at the convention center” are rumors on All Things Considered.

Brad DeLong offers up the best summation with the following

Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff claims that food and water are being provided to refugee concentrations, and that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia:

Robert Siegel: We are hearing from our reporter, he’s on another line right now, thousands of people at the convention center in New Orleans with no food, zero.

Chertoff: As I said, I’m telling you we are getting food and water to areas where people are staging. The one about an episode like this is if you talk to someone or you get a rumor or an anecdotal version of something I think it’s dangerous to extrapolate it all over the place.

[Snip]

Robert Siegel: But Mr. Secretary when you say we shouldn’t listen to rumors. These are things coming from reporters who have not only covered many many other hurricanes, they’ve covered wars and refugee camps. These aren’t rumors, they are saying there are thousands of people there.

Chertoff: I would be–I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don’t have food and water

Strangely, back as early as the evening of the 29th the Mayor was talking about sending people to the Convention Center (a place used as a shelter in previous hurricanes). Why do that? It’s on high ground near the primary route out of New Orleans that is still open. And it appears the Feds agreed and it was pretty much the meeting place for people not in the Superdome.

Some at the Convention Center report being sent there three days ago to await transportation out of the city. Some supplies arrived today–but much was busted up because it was thrown off the bridge–yes, that’s right, the bridge that all traffic is going in and out of is right there. In other words, there is no way to not know that the convention center has thousands of people waiting for transportation out for anyone coming in and out.

So the Secretary of Homeland Security didn’t know–perhaps he was confused.

Undersecretary of Homeland Security FEMA director Mike Brown got on both Nightline and Paula Zahn Live and proclaimed they didn’t know about the Convention Center until today.

So apparently no one in FEMA’s chain of information/command could look down from a fucking bridge or talk to the Mayor of New Orleans or even a cop or National Guard member who were sending people there. How close is the bridge? Go here for an illustration

He also made a rather pitiful attempt to blame those who stayed behind. Nevermind that many were emergency workers, infirm, trapped tourists who had cancelled flights, or too poor to get out.

Then Deputy Assclown tried to say that they were taking over from the locals after they couldn’t get answers. Fuck him. Anyone who has seen Nagin on local New Orleans feeds knows he’s been asking for very specific types of support and for since the evening of the 30th he’s been talking about problems at the staging center at the Convention Center. He has been the single most reliable soruce for identifying where people are stuck and what the priority to getting them out should lie.

There’ll be plenty of time to criticize the slow call-up of the Louisiana National Guard and the request for more help from outside the region, but right now, these guys continue to serially fuck up.

Chertoff and Brown apparently either don’t have any contact with those below them or the people below them are so incredibly fucking incompetent they aren’t telling them anything about what is actually happening.

Being wrong in a crisis is understandable, but to be wrong over several hours when 10,000 lives are at stake and not even figure out how wrong you are is a staggering level of incompetence. They were literally the last people to know, and even then insisted there was no way for them to know….