Must read: "Who Destroyed FEMA?"
 

The following article was posted by a fellow Pelicanite in the topic titled, <b>"Bush and co. are horrible ... I am sooo ashamed"</b>.

But I decided to extricate it from the topic because I want as many people to read this article as possible.

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Who Destroyed FEMA?

By HENRY BREITROSE

Here's a timeline that outlines the fate of both FEMA and flood control projects in New Orleans under the Bush administration. Read it and weep:

January 2001: Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, a crony from Texas, as head of FEMA. Allbaugh has no previous experience in disaster management.

April 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daniels announces the Bush administration's goal of privatizing much of FEMA's work. In May, Allbaugh confirms that FEMA will be downsized: "Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program...." he said. "Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level."

2001: FEMA designates a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country."

December 2002: After less than two years at FEMA, Allbaugh announces he is leaving to start up a consulting firm that advises companies seeking to do business in Iraq. He is succeeded by his deputy, Michael Brown, who, like Allbaugh, has no previous experience in disaster management.

March 2003: FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level position and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its mission is refocused on fighting acts of terrorism.

2003: Under its new organization chart within DHS, FEMA's preparation and planning functions are reassigned to a new Office of Preparedness and Response. FEMA will henceforth focus only on response and recovery.

Summer 2004: FEMA denies Louisiana's pre-disaster mitigation funding requests. Says Jefferson Parish flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue: "You would think we would get maximum consideration....This is what the grant program called for. We were more than qualified for it."

June 2004: The Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee construction in New Orleans is slashed. Jefferson Parish emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri comments: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay."

June 2005: Funding for the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is cut by a record $71.2 million. One of the hardest-hit areas is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes.

August 2005: While New Orleans is undergoing a slow motion catastrophe, Bush mugs for the cameras, cuts a cake for John McCain, plays the guitar for Mark Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and continues with his vacation. When he finally gets around to acknowledging the scope of the unfolding disaster, he delivers only a photo op on Air Force One and a flat, defensive, laundry list speech in the Rose Garden.

A crony with no relevant experience was installed as head of FEMA. Mitigation budgets for New Orleans were slashed even though it was known to be one of the top three risks in the country. FEMA was deliberately downsized as part of the Bush administration's conservative agenda to reduce the role of government. After DHS was created, FEMA's preparation and planning functions were taken away.

Actions have consequences. No one could predict that a hurricane the size of Katrina would hit this year, but the slow federal response when it did happen was no accident. It was the result of four years of deliberate Republican policy and budget choices that favor ideology and partisan loyalty at the expense of operational competence. It's the Bush administration in a nutshell.

About the author:

Henry Breitrose is a Professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford University.

the article comes off as partisan. Do you have other FEMA objective info ?

There's detailed articles on the topic in the NY Times and Washington Post. Not perfectly objective, perhaps, but worth reading. If you can't find the links, I'll dig them up and post.

That'd be good, John.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301653.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/national/nationalspecial/02response.html

And articles on the finger-pointing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05blame.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/04/AR2005090401337.html

As well as a link I posted in another thread

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.chertoff/

By the way, it is perfectly clear that Joe Allbaugh, FEMA head from 2/01 to 3/03, got the job via political patronage (Bush campaign manager in 2000 and in gubernatorial race, no disaster management/emergency response experience at all). So did current FEMA head Michael Brown (Allbaugh's college roommate, lawyer whose prior experience was as Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horses Association, also no experience at all in disaster/emergency response.) I really have no idea why FEMA isn't run by someone with some relevant experience, e.g. police or military or emergency services.

Brown has really been putting his foot in his mouth - e.g on 9/1 he was upbeat about the relief effort (things going "relatively well"), blaming the victims, and saying he had to be careful about getting rescue personnel to the city earlier ("Otherwise, we would have faced an even higher death toll"). http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/01/katrina.fema.brown/ But firing people is viewed as an admission of failure by the current Administration, so Brown's job is probably safe.

Thanks John!

ditto

Amazing...

WSJ

http://interactive.wsj.com/dividends/retrieve.cgi?id=/text/wsjie/data/SB112562889661629997.djm&d2hconverter=display-d2h&template=dividends


http://interactive.wsj.com/dividends/retrieve.cgi?id=/text/wsjie/data/SB112546519831627644.djm&d2hconverter=display-d2h&template=dividends

There are lots of competing interests for federal dolars and attention. I guess it just depends on how much you are willing to spent to always be ready to bail out folks who choose to live in places where natural disaster is likely. People/local governments need to be held responsible for the choice they make...and they should be the ones who take care of mergency planning/management for problems unique to them/their area. Living on the coastline, below sea level is a choice you can make, but why would one expect the folks who choose a bit wiser to be prepared to bail them out at a moments notice. If the folks do make the choice to live in these places, a little local planning and preparation would go a long way. For example, folks who live in the middle of North Dakota don't wait until there is a blizzard and start whining for the government to immediately provide snow plows, heating oil, parkas, thermal underwear, and the military. They are prepared..have generators and food, water, and medicine stocked up, weapons to protect themselves, etc. Local emergency workers handle most problems....as they should.

yep, a city's levees collapsing leaving the place a couple of metres under water and god knows what else is just like a blizzard. Uhuh. Nice one fint.

Of course it is. Not much difference. Neither was unexpected. Both were easy to prepare for..both are expensive to prepare for. When one lives below sea level, next to a levee that is rated for less than a cat 3 hurricane...one should expect to be prepared to evacuate when a cat 5 is inbound. Not to mention the obvious...elect city/state official who would require new buildings to be elevated (housing/building code is local in the US)...or the obvious...allocate local funds to repair/reinforce/raise the levees.

Well I've been through a flood but not a blizzard so I guess I'm not really qualified to compare. I can imagine though that it's easier to keep falling snow out of the house than rising water. From what I understand, most of those stuck in NO didn't choose to stay - just no other option. Again, it's only what's making it through the media to this side of the globe.
One thing I do agree with (I think this might be a first fint), is that it makes a bit of sense to allocate funds to the levee thing. That seems to be the point of the thread to begin with.

If one does not plan/prepare...they are screwed in a blizzard. If the roof structure is not built to hold the weight of a great deal of snow, it will collapse and the snow will also be inside the house. Also, it is prudent to climb up and remove large, heavy snows. The problem is usually keeping the cold out, rather than the snow, since large snows are usually accompanied sunzero temperatures, downed power lines, and an inability to deliver heating oil/gas.
That is why preparations must be local...there is no reason to send snowplows to Florida....each situation is very different...but equally deadly.
Similarly, that is why local government should address such problems through the local tax structure instead of at the federal level. If it is cost prohibitive to make an area relatively safe...people will not locate there due to the high taxes and will opt for safer areas. The rest of the country should not have to pay for bad local decisions.
The city made no attempt to evacuate citizens before the storm other than to ask them to leave. They could have made evacuation mandatory, offered busses, etc. Then most of the police (who should have stayed) did leave. Then, instead of conmtrolling looters/crime, the local govt sympathized with them and allowed the situation to get way out of hand.

Flint, you and I usually agree. Does it make more sense to build a city araund the 4th largest port on earth, one of the largest oil & gas reserves in the US and some of the richest fishing grounds in our country and then protect it as our activity washes away the protective coastline, or is it better to build a city in the desert where water has to be dammed and piped hundreds of miles so we can have access to slot machines and whores?

There are lots of competing interests for federal dolars and attention. I guess it just depends on how much you are willing to spent to always be ready to bail out folks who choose to live in places where natural disaster is likely.


Where on this Earth is natural disaster NOT likly? The folks who choose to live in the gulf coast do alot for this country, considering that this country is fueled by fuel.

Exactly! The multi-million dollar mansions on the coast of Fl or Mass or NY are there purely for the enjoyment of the ultra-rich. Many are uninsurable due to location. Estates that fall off bluffs or burn up in wildfires in CA are again where they are solely for the enjoyment of multi-millionaires. If the govt can sponsor their re-building for mere whimsy then I see no problem doing it here.

As a southerner myself, I have nothing against LA or New Orleans... I am just trying to apply logic. If the natural attributes of the city/location are that wonderous enough to warrent living there in spite of the risk (and they may well be)...there should have been plenty of revenue/reason to build the levees and buildings properly. It should be in the building codes just as much as hot water heater retaining straps are in the code for areas prone to earthquakes. bad local (good old boypolitics) government and squandering of revenue is the problem in Louisiana.

If I build my home in the desert, I would not expect FEMA to bring me water if I had a drrought/dry well....or provide A/C if the temperatures were excessive. There are limits to what federal govt should/can do. Now, if I wanted to get together with other residents of the desert and build a pipeline, dam, well, etc to provide myself more water for (insurance)...that would be different.

I own a house in North Carolina that was built in the 20's. As all the homes in that area of that era...the site was selected carefully. Noone in the 20's expected the govt to bail them out if they did something stupid. (note the French Quarter and much of the older areas did not flood badly) Recent floods washed away/damaged several homes that were built more recently..on very low lying plots. There was no damage to my home. Should I be taxed to build some sort of diversion to protect their homes in the future..or to rebuild the damage...even though they knowingly built them in a flood area?

Uh, have you never been to NO???? There are plenty of slot machines and whores there, too. Well, not today, but pre-Katrina.

I didn't see anyone here *****ing about FEMAs policies when Florida was helped out.

But now that it's Louisiana and Mississippi, I hear that FEMA shouldn't be helping, or people shouldn't expect it to help?

WTF do all these folks pay taxes to the Feds for? FEMA was helpful to me after the '94 quake. They set up a loan for me to repair damage to my house. They were very visible and efficient. I was so impressed with them that I sent a 'thank you' letter.

FEMA failed in Louisiana and Mississippi -- failed to do anywhere near the job they did in several past Florida hurricanes. BUT, their response was comparable to the first big hurricane they had to deal with in Florida: slow. It seems they have no serious pre-disaster planning, but just feel their way along with each state infrastructure as needed.

I don't think anyone has said that all citizens should depend on FEMA -- although that's the way the apologists for this administration are trying to spin it. But in any hierarchy, the highest authority (with the greatest resources) is going to have to take some responsibility for all the government relief efforts the taxpayers *thought* they were paying for. So NO and LA are making FEMA look bad. And on top of that, FEMA looks like it's being mismanaged by yet another recipient of political welfare.

I see a couple of conflicting considerations here.

First, it seems that people and communities who choose to live in known dangerous areas should bear the burden of protecting against those dangers (e.g. earthquake zones on the West Coast, hurricane regions in the South-East, blizzard areas in the North.) Individual people should make preparations (e.g. earthquake kits), and cities/states should tax heavily enough to fund the necessary protections (e.g. flood levees) and recovery (e.g. post-hurricane reconstruction). This cost would be added to the price of goods and services produced by the region (e.g. additional taxes on the oil and gas companies in the Gulf Coast).

Second, this society just isn't willing and in fact isn't able to leave a disaster-stricken community to its own resources. When Americans see hundreds of thousands of other Americans in desperate need, we are not going to fold our arms and say "let them be responsible for the choices they made". And considering that people can freely cross state lines, a mass disaster in one state really does become the problem of other states. Even if the stricken community and people failed to take adequate precautions, both compassion and practicality compel other states to help.

Third, sometimes centralized disaster response resources may be more efficient than local. For example, instead of each each state funding emergency personnel, equipment, shelter, cots, medical facilities, etc for millions of people, the federal government can do this centrally. After all, any one state won't have opportunity to use those emergency resources very often - once every couple decades or so (Florida is an unfortunate exception). So it's kind of like the insurance principle - spreading risk and cost.

I agree.

This whole neocon notion of 'let them simmer in their fecal soup' is a little over the top for most of us.

People need to remember that NO was not built below sea level from what I understand, it has sunk (?)

Are you blaming the people for living there, Fintstone? Or just the ones that could not leave? I have been thinking that they should have made more of an effort to evacuate, (and in hindsight it's easy to say), but the shear number of people left behind makes me tend to believe that many had no way out. It is true that the local/state govt. should have had a massive contingency plan to remove people from NO.

Having an underqualified or unqualified person heading FEMA is just completely unacceptable and irresponsible, it is just too important of a post. Like a firefighter in a sleepy town, they are able to relax most of the time but when you need them, you need them. Bush is burying the GOP party for ages, IMO. People will not forget this one, and one hell of a lot of red state folks are hating him after this. It is a classic case for the Dems, who believe that govt. should provide better services to all people.

Here's a NYT story contrasting two New Orleans families - one middle-class, one poor. The poor family couldn't leave because they lacked a car. Their apartment was flooded and then burned. Their cash savings ($2,000) and all papers, etc, were destroyed. They escaped to the Superdome and today are among the refugees who, according to a prior post "need to be held responsible for the choice they make...and they should be the ones who take care of mergency planning/management for problems unique to them/their area". A quarter of New Orleans' population are at the poverty level. http://nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05moving.html?pagewanted=2

Speeder said:
"Having an underqualified or unqualified person heading FEMA is just completely unacceptable and irresponsible, it is just too important of a post. Like a firefighter in a sleepy town, they are able to relax most of the time but when you need them, you need them. Bush is burying the GOP party for ages, IMO. People will not forget this one, and one hell of a lot of red state folks are hating him after this. It is a classic case for the Dems, who believe that govt. should provide better services to all people."

Speeder, Bush has one shot. Appoint Juliani as "recovery czar" and let him try to make the best of this. With a good showing he will beat Hillary. Short of that, you won't see a republican pres for 20 years.

John- I have no doubt that some of the folks in NO couldn't leave and I certainly don't "blame" them. I'm not asking for people to take sole responsibility for their actions. Obviously, in hindsight, we all wish things could have been done better/quicker with less suffering. What rubs me (and I assume some others) is the lack of taking any personal responsibility while blaming anyone and everyone else for the poor's misfortune. I think a lot of the comments (i.e. people need to take responsibility) we're seeing are in response to the screams of "it's Bush's fault".

I'm sure that some poor had no way to leave. I'm also sure that some that could leave (catch ride with neighbors or other family, grab a greyhound, etc.) simply chose not to.

I certainly don't believe that everyone (100%) who suffered in the aftermath of the floods were stuck in NO simply b/c of their poverty or race. BTW, I continue to see (what appears to be) poor people in the area who refuse to leave. I'm talking about as of last night and today. They simply say to the rescuers "go away, we're fine".

Another thought... If the people who could have left had, maybe there would have been enough food & water to sustain those who couldn't leave. It surely would have made the evacuation this week easier/quicker.

Just my .02,
Skip

I can't understand why liberals always have to changew the argument to one that is more easily argued...than to argue what someone actually posts. No one has claimed that FEMA should not help out after a natural disaster. the point is that if citizens exhibited a bit more personal responsibility..and if local governments did their job...there woiuld be a lot fewer dead and a whole lot less to fix/cleanup.
As far as to whether FEMA is mismanaged or is looking bad..and how well they will do in the aftermath of the disaster...that remains to be seen....but it will be difficult to judge since the locals have screwed thingds up so royally to start with.

First of all, apparently New Orleans has been sinking a long time. Your rational might apply to buildings from 50 to 100 years ago, bit not to new ones. It seems that many of the older buildings held up quite well.
Secondly, The people were instructed to evacuate. The city/state should have helped anyone leave who did not have a way out. It would certainly be easier to mobilize busses that were already their and under their (state and local) control than to have people bring them from outside.
Am I blaming people for living there?...If there are people living in a city that is that vulnerable to such a disaster..and are not mobile.. .I certainly do think that it is unwise to live there. There are many less expensive places to live without the risk.

.....and someone else should pay for them.

Flintstone, this is a re-post:
Flint, you and I usually agree. Does it make more sense to build a city araund the 4th largest port on earth, one of the largest oil & gas reserves in the US and some of the richest fishing grounds in our country and then protect it as our activity washes away the protective coastline, or is it better to build a city in the desert where water has to be dammed and piped hundreds of miles so we can have access to slot machines and whores?

Maybe if we had spent some of that money on NO they're would be a few thousand people still alive.

Mule, this is a repost of the answer to your post that you are reposting:
As a southerner myself, I have nothing against LA or New Orleans... I am just trying to apply logic. If the natural attributes of the city/location are that wonderous enough to warrent living there in spite of the risk (and they may well be)...there should have been plenty of revenue/reason to build the levees and buildings properly. It should be in the building codes just as much as hot water heater retaining straps are in the code for areas prone to earthquakes. bad local (good old boypolitics) government and squandering of revenue is the problem in Louisiana.

If I build my home in the desert, I would not expect FEMA to bring me water if I had a drrought/dry well....or provide A/C if the temperatures were excessive. There are limits to what federal govt should/can do. Now, if I wanted to get together with other residents of the desert and build a pipeline, dam, well, etc to provide myself more water for (insurance)...that would be different.

I own a house in North Carolina that was built in the 20's. As all the homes in that area of that era...the site was selected carefully. Noone in the 20's expected the govt to bail them out if they did something stupid. (note the French Quarter and much of the older areas did not flood badly) Recent floods washed away/damaged several homes that were built more recently..on very low lying plots. There was no damage to my home. Should I be taxed to build some sort of diversion to protect their homes in the future..or to rebuild the damage...even though they knowingly built them in a flood area?


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Really? If the power goes away should we allow Las Vegans to bake or rescue them? Is that a hard question? What about this one, are you pro-life?

Generally, what you wrote is the way even liberals see it.

However, your last line is the biggest disagreement we have, Fint. If we had spent as much on NO per capita as instead of spending it on Iraqis (by my calculation $11,5XX per person), very few Americans would have died in this hurricane or the next 20.

it's a one-time expenditure if it's done right. The Netherlands has managed to preserve a whole country at below sea level because they committed to do it. England has managed the Thames flooding. I think we're up to the task.

If you are talking about electrical power in Las Vegas, I assume that either the city or state would would buy it elsewhere. If none were available, I certainly imagine that most folks living in the desert..as well as many places throughout the south...would relocate to other areas. I do not expect that they would need anyone to rescue them. They would simply drive away.

Don't get me wrong. I have never even implied that the folks in New Orleans should not be rescued. In fact, just the opposite. It is just sad that there are so many dead and so many needing rescue...largely due to their own actions and that of their local government. I would only wish that they would learn from their mistakes instead of blaming others who had their jobs made much more difficult because of the ineptness of the local officials and the fact that so many did not leave as directed.

If you are trying to slam me about Las Vegas....don't bother. I don't like it there one bit. I only live there now because my country needs me to be there. I will leave as soon as I am not needed.

Why was it not "done right" before? 10 or even 20 years ago? And if you did manage to make New Orleans Hurricane proof...Where do you stop? Do you do the same for Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Hawaii, etc. What about the Florinda Keys? How much would it cost to elevate a few islands? Do you build levees on every river in the US that tends to flood so folks can build below level? Should I go buy some cheap land in a flood plain and build a bunch of homes so that other taxpayers can bail me out when the inevitable flood come? Don't I or my local officials have any obligation to act reasonably?

Reading comprehension problems again?

Or were you just tossing out another straw man argument?

I was referenceing flooding protection of populations living below sea level as accomplished by other countries (neither of which have hurricanes).

thx procon

and from the 1st article site I posted on p1

"By law, FEMA requires all states, if they are to receive grant money, to file both pre- and post-catastrophe mitigation plans. Experts in Louisiana, and indeed New Orleans, have been drafting one for several years."

fwiw. I choose to live on the real estate I'm living on now. It's as vulnerable as it gets imo. I'm used to it but I don't like the idea of living in LA [btdt] earthquakes. If the feds have to bail me out that's fine w/me. If they don't it's not like I expect them to. I won't turn down $100k either if they want to help me protect this house by raising it in the air 15'although I'm not going to spend it.

The difference to me seems that they were told they would be safe from harm. Their Governor and Mayor screwed them by not raising the money thru state and local taxes to pay their 50%. They feds or state gov't haven't told me that they will protect me besides yelling

"evacuation now" http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/loki5.gif

Seems clear to me that if we spend the federal tax dollars to ensure that New Orleans residents are safe from natural disaster (as you advocate), we would have to do the same for the residents of any similar potential catastrophes...or would you consider citizens of New Orleans more deserving of such largess than other citizens?

I agree with Fint - there needs to be some careful thought about who pays, in the context of the potential for it to happen again.

If it were my money (ie, if I lived in the US), I'd probably be happy enough to see federal $$$ pay to reinstate the city and the existing levees, but the residents of the new, improved New Orleans should have to pay for the new, improved levee system (they could be lent the money by the Fed govt). If you want to live there, it might have to be reflected in local govt costs.

And there better be some heavy duty long term planning to make sure it doesn't happen again.

I sure hope you guys feel the same next time a flood, hurricane, blizzard, tornado, landslide, earthquake, drought, famine, forest fire, volcano, monsoon, tsunami, cyclone, heat wave, etc., etc. hits your particular place on earth and destroys everything you have. my guess is that you will be standing there with your arms outstretched begging for help just like everyone affected by Katrina

I need $100k protection $.