WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen will replace Michael Brown, the embattled FEMA director, as the on-site head of hurricane relief operations in the Gulf Coast, a senior administration official told CNN.
-Earlier Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, questioned FEMA's ability to spend the money properly and suggested that a public authority similar to the Tennessee Valley Authority be created for rebuilding efforts.
"After everything that has happened with FEMA, is there anyone who believes that we should continue to let the money go to FEMA and be distributed by them?" Reid asked.-
I know I'm not there,a nd I KNOW that this was a deadly blow to the city, but it really does seem to me like FEMA has dropped the ball here. Hopefully this move will help the victims out more.
Originally posted by JimBob SkeeterEarlier Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, questioned FEMA's ability to spend the money properly and suggested that a public authority similar to the Tennessee Valley Authority be created for rebuilding efforts.
Oh boy - more bureaucracy is ALWAYS the answer. Just look at how safe that DHS reorg has made us! PERMANENT YELLOW ALERT!
Somehow I've gotten the impression that it was the people who were in charge at FEMA that were the problem, not the organization itself. What were Mike Brown's qualifications anyway? All I've been hearing about is his damn horse commish job.
BEHOLD MY POWER February 2nd, 2001 - August 9th, 2005 The End of an Era
Originally posted by JaguarSomehow I've gotten the impression that it was the people who were in charge at FEMA that were the problem, not the organization itself. What were Mike Brown's qualifications anyway? All I've been hearing about is his damn horse commish job.
But Jag isn't an organization the people in charge?
IMO, the problem FEMA and most of "Homeland Security" has is being focused on terrorism almost to the exclusion of natural disasters. If the numbers are true, many more people will have died as the result of Katrina than on 9/11. Both are horrific and need to be prepared for and I honestly don't feel we are prepared for either as well as we should be. And BOTH parties are to blame!
Reid and Pelosi are sacrificial lambs. The Democrats realize that as the minority party all their leaders can do is bitch and moan, so they found two stooges who are self-seeking enough to take the jobs even though they have to constantly humiliate themselves.
Hillary Clinton, whatever one thinks of her, is shrewd and ambitious. If those jobs were worth having, she would have taken one of them, but she knows that right now the role consists mainly of bitching and moaning.
Unfortunately having clowns in leadership positions doesn't help the party to generate the support needed to reverse the Republican majority. What agendas are Reid and Pelosi pushing? What programs have they proposed. Bashing the other party isn't enough, as John Kerry discovered. You have to communicate your own vision and your own plan for reaching that goal.
Proposing a bureaucracy isn't a plan, it's a soundbyte. If the Democrats wanted to take the initiative, they would come out with their own budget and timeline for rebuilding the region along with programs to address the poverty of the victims and the horrific response by local, state, and federal officials.
But of course Reid and Pelosi refuse to criticize local and state officials because they are Democrats, so they couldn't really develop a cogent response to this event, even if they had the vision and intelligence to do so.
But I digress...
Bush will probably appoint Colin Powell as "relief czar."
Originally posted by JaguarSomehow I've gotten the impression that it was the people who were in charge at FEMA that were the problem, not the organization itself. What were Mike Brown's qualifications anyway? All I've been hearing about is his damn horse commish job.
But Jag isn't an organization the people in charge?
IMO, the problem FEMA and most of "Homeland Security" has is being focused on terrorism almost to the exclusion of natural disasters. If the numbers are true, many more people will have died as the result of Katrina than on 9/11. Both are horrific and need to be prepared for and I honestly don't feel we are prepared for either as well as we should be. And BOTH parties are to blame!
As far as aftermath goes, is there really any significant difference between reacting to a terrorist attack and reacting to a natural disaster? It would seem that it's pretty much the same difference, which is why FEMA was rolled into the DHS in the first place. This should be a wake-up call, we aren't prepared to handle disasters, at least not nationwide, and considering we have a department dedicated to this, it's something that needs to be fixed (creating a different department doesn't fix anything).
The Bored are already here. Idle hands are the devil's workshop. And no... we won't kill dolphins. But koalas are fair game.
Originally posted by JaguarSomehow I've gotten the impression that it was the people who were in charge at FEMA that were the problem, not the organization itself. What were Mike Brown's qualifications anyway? All I've been hearing about is his damn horse commish job.
I have to agree. For every position in DC I want a person who is well qualified for the job. Not a person who was able to round up 8 million in campaign contributions or helped win Vermont in the last election. Rewarding your friends after you win an election is an old process in DC. But it's stupid. Putting someone who was in charge of the Red Cross or some related situation would have made too much sense. Instead we get friends of the new POTUS shuffled off into hopefully non-important positions. Well, let's see if the next POTUS learns their lesson but don't bet any money on it.
Marge I am just trying to get into heaven not run for Jesus.
Originally posted by Boston IdolReid and Pelosi are sacrificial lambs. The Democrats realize that as the minority party all their leaders can do is bitch and moan, so they found two stooges who are self-seeking enough to take the jobs even though they have to constantly humiliate themselves.
Hillary Clinton, whatever one thinks of her, is shrewd and ambitious. If those jobs were worth having, she would have taken one of them, but she knows that right now the role consists mainly of bitching and moaning.
Unfortunately having clowns in leadership positions doesn't help the party to generate the support needed to reverse the Republican majority. What agendas are Reid and Pelosi pushing? What programs have they proposed. Bashing the other party isn't enough, as John Kerry discovered. You have to communicate your own vision and your own plan for reaching that goal.
Proposing a bureaucracy isn't a plan, it's a soundbyte. If the Democrats wanted to take the initiative, they would come out with their own budget and timeline for rebuilding the region along with programs to address the poverty of the victims and the horrific response by local, state, and federal officials.
But of course Reid and Pelosi refuse to criticize local and state officials because they are Democrats, so they couldn't really develop a cogent response to this event, even if they had the vision and intelligence to do so.
But I digress...
Bush will probably appoint Colin Powell as "relief czar."
Frank
Hey, once the Dems win back the House in 2006 after the public's disgust at the Republicans, and then Bush/Cheney are impeached, Pelosi becomes president. And then you can't make posts like this any more since the president needs your support (tm Fox News).
I think it's clear that none of the elected officials did a good job before, during or in the immediate aftermath of his disaster, and that includes people from both parties. Isn't FEMA's specific job to look after natural disasters while the Department of Homeland Security handles terrorism?
"Rap-metal nearly put the white race in jeopardy [as a creative force]. It's a travesty. Those [rap-metal] people should just take suicide pills and go away." -- Bono
The next phase of this story will be "we got off light."
I'm not downplaying the suffering of people who were stuck in New Orleans for several days nor am I downplaying the loss of life and property, but with a death toll likely to be 5,000 or less as compared to studies that predicted 60,000 or more deaths, New Orleans got off light in terms of the death toll. Hopefully people will think long and hard about the implications of this, because it was good luck rather than good planning. If the hurricane had not veered East, away from New Orleans, it probably would have killed more than 60,000 people because it was stronger than the hurricane used in the study.
We should treat this failure as if it cost tens of thousands of lives, because only dumb luck spared many people in New Orleans from being killed the night the storm hit the city.
The first lesson is to allow the President to take control of a situation without an invitation from state or local government. Bush declared an emergency long before local and state government acted. He shouldn't have needed to wait for them to figure out how serious the situation was.
The second lesson is to make evacuations mandatory. It will cost a lot of money and there will be false alarms, but it is the best way to prevent loss of life. Perhaps we could have gotten troops and supplies to the Convention Center faster, but if the hurricane hadn't changed course, most of those people would have already been dead.
Bush declared an emergency on Saturday. Mayor Nagin didn't issue the mandatory evacuation order until Sunday morning. That is the delay I was referring to.
Nagin was called at 8PM Saturday night, your link does not dispute that, yet Nagin waited another 14 hours before issuing the mandatory evacuation order.
I don't see any defense offered for that delay on the page to which you linked. In fact it appears the author ignored the issue of Nagin's long delay entirely because it wasn't flattering to Nagin.
Originally posted by Boston IdolThe first lesson is to allow the President to take control of a situation without an invitation from state or local government.
I am not sure this jibes with what you have been saying in other threads about how the primary level of blame lies with the local and state governments, since they are the ones most familiar with the situation and should be responsible for planning and dealing with the aftermath of such an event. Seems to me like letting the Feds take control of the situation without waiting for advisement from the local/state governments would be very much not in line with that way of thinking.
Local government should be responsible first, but clearly Nagin and Blanco were totally inept. Nagin didn't provide any evacuation transportation despite knowing that perhaps 50,000 or more residents didn't even own cars. Blanco set up shelter for a mere 1,000 evacuees, despite New Orleans having about 100,000 people registered as disabled.
If a competant federal official (apparently Brown doesn't qualify) had taken charge, he or she could have ordered the city of New Orleans to use their fleet of busses (at least 700) to start evacuating people on Saturday night or early Sunday morning. He or she could have ordered the state to start setting up shelters or working with FEMA to identify area where the Guard could set them up.
Worst case scenario is state and local government are complete fuck ups, which we saw in this instance. There are problems at the federal level, like appointing hacks who raised money for the President, but we are more likely to be able to fix the problem in Washington than to fix the potential problems in 50 states.
If the buck stops in Washington, the Federal Government needs the power to intervene. Yes, state and local officials are better positioned to develop plans and to provide a short term response. FEMA should be able to put pressure on those governments to develop plans, drill for emergencies, and make improvements in a timely manner.
Zed, in our state, the Governor, Sam Brownback is a staunch catholic, member of Opus Dei, and a supplysider who has done everything the Pope's Statement railed against.