Jack Kelly writes a column about how the Hurricane Response was the best ever, which only counts if you rule out any decently handled hurricane. His poster children are
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.”
Of course, Hugo and Andrew were before James Lee Witt had professionalized the department and the pressure from Andrew was a big reason. Frances and Jeanne were under the new Bush administration. And the Federal response for Iniki under Bush I was actually faster than any of the above–the administration put a priority on getting that one right after the Andrew debacle.
What he doesn’t mention are the hurricanes handled under Witt which did actually have federal help there in much faster periods of time. The aid was prepositioned and actually delivered it fast. Certainly, after the immediate crisis there were problems, but throughout the 90s the aid was far faster and better planned than before. Yet, Kelly’ uses a source that happens to skip over that and ignores that Iniki had aid in 48 hours. Not always National Guard troops, but FEMA help was there—and afterall the entire premise of the above is a bit odd since any fault for the Louisiana local National Guard is a state problem as was Mississippi’s late response.
Kelly then demonstrates that his editors really suck for not catching blatant falsehoods in his article:
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?
Of course, buses didn’t have to come from Houston, though some might well have. Buses were a part of a registry with FEMA that apparently wasn’t activated quickly for some unknown reason. Further there weren’t 2000 buses in New Orleans to use. Scroll down for more on buses and evacuation.
This is just shoddy reporting
UPDATE:
Media Matters further deconstructs the whole deal.
Actually, the column is even less truthful than it appeared. Details here.
I don’t think the argument ‘no, we could only have saved half that many, so quit picking on us’ is very compelling.
I’d say Gingrich wins hands down. He’s right – neither Bush nor Blanco nor Nagin deserve to be anything higher than, say, a trustee on a small town board, or maybe president of a baseball club.
That’s not really the argument though–the argument is how to move the most people to safety and when you have a limited number of bus drivers getting them to a Refuge of Last Resort lets you reach more people. If you send the buses out of town–you can’t use them for more than one trip. Contraflow operated until 5 PM Sunday and after that it wasn’t safe to be on the road much longer. The idea in the planning was that if you couldn’t get many drivers, you have to reach the most people.
Beyond that, it’s pretty typical for the people with the fewest resources to wait the longest to get to an evacuation pick-up further complicating the process of moving them somewhere safer than home.
USA Today says Kelley “was forced to resign last week after he repeatedly misled editors during an internal investigation into stories he wrote.” Editor Karen Jurgensen had previously said that Kelley “elected to resign,” but today’s statement said he was told he would be fired if he did not quit.
He’s a dependable source…right?