The real Katrina timeline

On Friday night before the storm hit, Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center took the unprecedented action of calling Nagin and Blanco personally to plead with them to begin MANDATORY evacuation of NO and they said they'd take it under consideration. This was after the NOAA buoy 240 miles south
had recorded 68' waves before it was destroyed.

President Bush spent Friday afternoon and evening in meetings with his advisors and administrators drafting all of the paperwork required for a state to request federal assistance (and not be in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act or having to enact the Insurgency Act). Just before midnight Friday evening the President called Governor Blanco and pleaded with her to sign the request papers so the federal government and the military could legally begin mobilization and call up. He was told that they didn't think it necessary for the federal government to be involved yet. After the President's final call to the governor she held meetings with her staff to discuss the political ramifications of bringing federal forces. It was decided that if they allowed federal assistance it would make it look as if they had failed so it was agreed upon that the feds would not be invited in.

Saturday before the storm hit the President again called Blanco and Nagin requesting they please sign the papers requesting federal assistance, that they declare the state an emergency area, and begin mandatory evacuation. After a personal plea from the President, Nagin agreed to order an evacuation, but it would not be a full mandatory evacuation, and the governor still refused to sign the papers requesting and authorizing federal action. In frustration the President declared the area a national disaster area before the state of Louisiana did so he could legally begin some advanced preparations. Rumor has it that the President's legal advisers were looking into the ramifications of using the insurgency act to bypass the Constitutional requirement that a state request federal aid before the
federal government can move into state with troops - but that had not been done since 1906 and the Constitutionality of it was called into question to use before the disaster.

Throw in that over half the federal aid of the past decade to NO for levee construction, maintenance, and repair was diverted to fund a marina and support the gambling ships. Toss in the investigation that will look into why the emergency preparedness plan submitted to the federal government for funding and published on the city's website was never implemented and in
fact may have been bogus for the purpose of gaining additional federal funding as we now learn that the organizations identified in the plan were never contacted or coordinating into any planning - though the document implies that they were.

[Scooter]

Well said good doctor! The truth will prevail in the end. Nagin is an incompetent moron and Blanco, well, I think I have seen more action from a potato chip.

[Mulhollanddose]

[aways]

Originally posted by SoCal911SC
I'm pretty convinced from what has been coming out that the mayor and the gov are both morons.

Fortunately for them, they will apparently get a lot of media and congressional assistance diverting attn from them and to Bush.

Unfortunately, you are right on both counts. The media was hard at work trying to spin a distorted story from day one. A Politically Correct protocol must be followed. After all, the NO Mayor is black and a Democrat, the LA Governor is a woman and a Democrat, and Bush is a Republican WASP. Case closed. No need to seek the truth.

[gaijindabe]

Bump.

[Steeve]

But wait, this flies in the face of all the "factual" posts on this board that made me believe that Bush personally invited Katrina to NO, and that he hates poor black people.

Where did I go wrong???

[skipdup]

Throw in that over half the federal aid of the past decade to NO for levee construction, maintenance, and repair was diverted to fund a marina and support the gambling ships.

Is this substantiated? Without a shadow of doubt?

[gaijindabe]

The story of the Levee Boards. That is going to be an ugly story of greed, corruption and avarice. But as we are not blaming anyone but Bush - the media can wait on this. Preferably until he is out of office.

[cool_chick]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose

Posting this stupid picture is just as stupid as me posting a picture of a fleet of military planes, military troops, and military warehouses of food/water and saying "Did Nagin hide the keys."

Stupid.

[Mule]

Mark, the largest waves I heard of were 47' off Dauphin Island in the storm's northeast quadrant. You're saying there were 21' higher waves in a weaker part of the storm. I can find NO verification of this. My BS alarm is on.

[Rodeo]

Having read this board silently for days, the "real" story of what happened has finally compelled me to speak. Not that it will do any good, I’m afraid. The political prisms Pelicans are looking through (much like the rest of the country I’m afraid) are too strong for rational discourse.

The ‘real" story above is so transparently biased that I can’t believe anyone would endorse it, no matter what side you are on. Bush "pleads" while the locals plot their political strategy. The good administration desperately tries to find a legal way around the evil locals, who care only how they "look." Corrupt state and city politicians squander the well-intentioned federal largess handed to them over the years. Please.

Why is it so hard to admit that this was a massive failure on the local, state and federal levels? Saying that DHS and FEMA, whose leaders were expressing ignorance of the desperate situation ON TELEVISION four days into this tragedy, were horribly incompetent, is NOT the same as saying the Mayor did a bang-up job of protecting his city. Admitting that this administration, at its highest levels, failed to appreciate the magnitude of the emergency until very late in the game, is NOT the same as promoting Governor Blanco for sainthood. Why is that so hard for some to accept?

Louisiana’s state and city officials failed to protect their populace. The federal government, which we have all been led to believe had spent the past four years training to respond to LOCAL emergencies (are there any other kind?), proved themselves not up to the job. Not even close.

I don’t vote in New Orleans or in Louisiana. That is not to say that I’m unconcerned how the federal government would respond to a natural or man-made disaster there. I’m VERY concerned about that, for economic, humanitarian, and a whole host of other reasons. This disaster was not a local problem, it was a national problem, and I’m ashamed of the incompetence with which it was handled.

No matter what your political streak, from liberal to libertarian, I think that everyone agrees that at a bare minimum, the government’s function is to protect its citizenry – from foreign armies, local thugs, and natural disasters. If it does nothing else, it should be prepared to protect its citizens. The city, state and federal government failed in their respective jobs.

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by SoCal911SC
I'm pretty convinced from what has been coming out that the mayor and the gov are both morons.

Fortunately for them, they will apparently get a lot of media and congressional assistance diverting attn from them and to Bush.

Its looking more and more like this is what happened. The Gov being in the opposite party and not liking Bush it seems like any offer of assistance that the Prez offered was turned down, then they realized that they needed it after having pissed the Prez off...

Far too much backroom politics and games being played, while people were dying in the process. Course the Gov and Mayor still were high, dry and safe...

JoeA

[speeder]

There will definitely be a congressional investigation into the federal response to the storm, as well as the state and local response. If everything in this "timeline" is true, it sounds like your boy Jr. will get a pass on any wrongdoing/negligence. I highly doubt it.

Here is another "timeline":


Storm engulfs Bush
Missteps compound damage for president
By Jennifer Loven, Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Bush White House is known for its ability to remain in control of its message and image, sliding out of crises with barely a scratch. Not this time.
Despite day after day of appearances by President George W. Bush aimed at undoing the political damage from a poor response to Hurricane Katrina, the White House has not been able to regain its footing, already shaken by the war in Iraq and a death toll exceeding 1,880.

The administration on Tuesday struggled to deflect calls for an accounting of who was responsible for a hurricane response that even Bush acknowledged was inadequate. There were increasing calls for the resignation or firing of Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"I think it's clear we're in damage control now," said Norman Ornstein, political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute think tank.

It's a troubling position for Bush, already suffering the lowest approval


For More Info

• AP Video: Soldiers help coax holdouts from their homes.
• Interactive: Understanding Hurricanes.
• Interactive: Live Hurricane Tracker.
• Photo Gallery: Hurricane Katrina.
• Photo Gallery: After the Storm, 1
After the Storm, 2
• More Coverage: The Latest stories.
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ratings of his presidency.

The mistakes have come one upon the other.

Even as Katrina was bearing down on the Gulf Coast that Sunday night and early Monday, Aug. 28-29, and the National Hurricane Center was warning of growing danger, the White House didn't alter the president's plans to fly from his Texas ranch to the West to promote a new Medicare prescription drug benefit.

By the time Bush landed in Arizona that Monday, the storm was unleashing its fury on Louisiana and Mississippi. The president inserted into his speech only a brief promise of prayers and federal help.

He continued his schedule in California, and he didn't decide until the next day that he should return to Washington. But it took him another day to get there, as he flew back to Texas to spend another night at his home before leaving for the White House.

Once the president was in Washington, the criticism only intensified.

While a drowned New Orleans descended into lawless misery, Bush delivered remarks from the Rose Garden that were seen as flat and corporate. It was a sharp contrast to the commanding, empathetic president the public rallied around in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In a television interview, Bush said - mistakenly - that nobody anticipated the breach of the levees in a serious storm.

Even Monday's trip to the region was a redo, hurriedly arranged by the White House over the weekend after lukewarm response to Bush's first in-person visit to the Gulf Coast last Friday.

Bush had raised eyebrows on his first trip by, among other things, picking Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. - instead of the thousands of mostly poor and black storm victims - as an example of loss. "Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house - he's lost his entire house - there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch," Bush said with a laugh from an airplane



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hangar in Mobile, Ala.

In the same remarks, Bush gave FEMA chief Brown - the face for many of the inadequate federal response - a hearty endorsement. "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," Bush said.

Later in Biloxi, Miss., Bush tried to comfort two stunned women wandering their neighborhood clutching Hefty bags, looking in vain for something to salvage from the rubble of their home. He kept insisting they could find help at a Salvation Army center down the street, even after another bystander had informed him it had been destroyed.

And at his last stop that day, at the airport outside New Orleans, Bush lauded the increasingly desperate city as a great town because he used go there and "enjoy myself - occasionally too much."

Unlike his galvanizing appearance in the rubble of the World Trade Center just days after the 2001 attacks, Bush has stayed far from the epicenter of New Orleans' suffering. His only foray into the city was to its edges to watch crews plugging one of the breached levees Friday.

On Monday, he skipped the hardest-hit coastal areas entirely, choosing instead to visit Baton Rouge, the state capital about 80 miles northwest of New Orleans, which sustained no damage. He also went to Poplarville, Miss., to walk the streets of a middle-class neighborhood that seemed to suffer little more than snapped trees, a couple off-kilter carport roofs and a downed power line or two.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the president avoided New Orleans to stay out of the way of search-and-rescue operations.

"It's going to be almost impossible to overcome the perception about the president that he didn't show compassion and didn't get control of the policy failures," American University political scientist James Thurber said. "The vivid images that are coming across the television are really destroying his image as a leader."

White House counsel Dan Bartlett said the president and his aides are unconcerned for now about the unrelenting criticism.

"Emotions are running high. People are tired," Bartlett said. "If we focused more of our attention on decisions that have already been made, rather than on those before us, there's potential for making far greater mistakes. ... We really don't have time to play the political game right now."

http://www2.dailynews.com/news/ci_3006286

[cool_chick]

Originally posted by Joeaksa
Its looking more and more like this is what happened. The Gov being in the opposite party and not liking Bush it seems like any offer of assistance that the Prez offered was turned down, then they realized that they needed it after having pissed the Prez off...

Far too much backroom politics and games being played, while people were dying in the process. Course the Gov and Mayor still were high, dry and safe...

JoeA

Joe, this is still all innuendo that I still havent' seen any evidence that it hampered anything on the part of the feds.

[skipdup]

Yeah... that's a fair and factual representation of what happened.

[gaijindabe]

This Ms. Loven with the AP. Is this an Op-Ed piece or am I daydreaming?

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by cool_chick
Joe, this is still all innuendo that I still havent' seen any evidence that it hampered anything on the part of the feds.

I have seen it reported several times but want to see it confirmed first.

So much crap flying around that we will not get the truth for a bit until things settle down. It will all come out in a while.

Joe

[einreb]

Originally posted by Mule
My BS alarm is on.

Yep. Do you have a link to the source for this?

It would be interesting to have threads discussing the situation. I have a tough time figuring out who here are trolls and which ones of you are actually insane.

[einreb]

Saturday, August 27

GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: “I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.” [Office of the Governor]

FEDERAL EMERGENCY DECLARED, DHS AND FEMA GIVEN FULL AUTHORITY TO RESPOND TO KATRINA: “Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.” [White House]

[speeder]

Originally posted by gaijindabe
This Ms. Loven with the AP. Is this an Op-Ed piece or am I daydreaming?

I will admit that it has an editorial slant to it, but it was on the front page of the Daily News yesterday as a news story. I was surprised, since I had always thought that the DN was a Republican paper. (Usually pay no attention to it.

The pertinent issue would be whether the events that she mentions, (and their timing), are factually correct or BS.