Fire them from the Top Down

It's time to start cleaning house and hiring competent people before the next disaster strikes (if you think it's limited to hurricanes it's not), think; train wrecks, floods, factory explosions, any sort of disaster involving a crisis in any populated area where people depend on their federal government to offer fast, experienced and critical assistance. I sent this article to both my Congressman and Senator. I'm going to send it to our governor too. Maybe I'll even send it to our Mayor.

This is not partisan - I don't care what party these people are affiliated with nor do I care what party the new people who are hired are affiliated with. All I care about is that they are experienced, competent people who do their jobs.

Politicians and Journalists can do all the finger pointing they want to at the local level and at the people who did not evacuate. The bottom line is that the entire hurricane Katrina disaster was a CF of monumental proportions, criminal in the number of unnecessary deaths resulting from delayed and inadequate response and ultimately, the responsibility lies with FEMA - they are SUPPOSED to be the experts. Not the Mayor, not the governor, and certainly not the average joe on the street.

Get rid of the clowns. Bring in a couple of Marine Corps Officers who can kick some ass and get some things done if necessary. Just don't let this issue drop into obscurity and fall to some commissions hands like 911 allowing the same incompetent clowns to respond to the next disaster in the same way allowing even more people to die unnecessarily.

While I agree with you emphatically here Rose; The Mayor of NOLA and the Governor of LA are bumbling freaking idiots. They couldn't even follow their own disaster evacuation plan. I want them both GONE! Preferrably with criminal charges.

All of them - Federal, State and Local government failed their constituents.

Being elected, it will be the responsibility of the constituents to fire them and I agree, they screwed up too. The Mayor and Govenor are responsible for making sure that there are shelters that are prepared for evacuation. They obviously were not. They do need to be held accountable.

Responsibility at their level does not just end with the issuance of an evacuation order and disaster declaration. Preparedness means that you have looked at all possible scenario's and that you have shared that information with your personnel and then done the most you could have to save the most lives in each scenario.

My point is that with FEMA - those people are *NOT* elected. It should not be about politics. It should be about having competent people to manage a disaster. These are not competent people. Certaintly - the head of FEMA, Brown is not even qualified.

As a nation, I do believe that we have a responsibility to demand that the people who represent us hire competent and qualified people to manage disasters and critical response.

One could argue that if the DHS paid less attention to imaginary terroristic shoes and more to actual problems they might have done better. But then again, imaginary shoes are much better at scaring people into compliance with civil liberties erosion, so perhaps they are doing the right thing.

I have to admit to not following the hurricane news, largely out of disgust, but I've seen little mention of the Coast Guard who in principle is well versed in water. Oh I forgot, they are busy protecting us from White Powder of Mass Destruction. Nevermind.

Actually Introvert, sadly I cannot find the ability to switch it off, the Coast Guard played a HUGE part in the first days of rescue ops. Of course now that the 'calvary' is there they have been remanded back to obscurity. GO COASTIES!

One thing I find very interesting. Is all the claims that the reason it took so long is because of the high minority percentage in New Orleans.

Well St. Bernard Persish, at town that according to the US Census is nearly 89% caucasion is finally just getting rescue efforts done today. THey have had no supplies brought in or any help with evacuation almost 2 weeks after this storm.

My point, I wish people wouldnt turn this in to race thing. Bush is equally as incompitent towards white folks also.

Interesting that webcams in the area have shown people of all races walking the streets in NO and at the convention center waiting for rescue but the press has shown none of that. They have also shown them helping each other. No press coverage of that either though.

I think we have to be careful not to let them turn it into a race/economic issue because if that happens, then the people in power will try and minimize it and the same incompetent people will just slip though the cracks and kill another thousand or more people though incompetance in the next disaster.

I don't see the press harping on the really tough questions like:

1. Why were there no evacuation plans for hospitals and nursing homes? Those people should have been some of the first out of the place.

2. Why were people who wanted to evacuate unable to find a means to do so? Why were women with two and three babies walking five or six miles before a storm to get to a bus stop and then find that it did not show up?

3. Why was the Superdome not better equiped at the onset with good plumbing and cots and emergency food, water and medical supplies? Where were the generator(s) for the superdome? Fuel? The coast guard had it ready to go, why did FEMA turn it back?

4. Why were the buses designated in the cities disaster plan to evacuate people from the superdome in a flooded lot with no one to drive them?

5. Why did FEMA not know about the people at the convention center?

6. Why did FEMA not know about the people in nursing homes and hospitals?

7. Why did FEMA not begin setting up evacuation sites like the Astrodome even before the hurricane hit?

8. Why was there a delay in sand bagging the levee?

9. Why were local emergency communications overriden and taken by FEMA?

10. Why were emergency provisions by private parties turned back?

The list goes on and on and on and on.

There were firemen from all over the country waiting to go in and rescue people sitting in hotels for DAYS. DAYS!!!

There was absolutely no coordination between FEMA and the state or local government and no communication or decent coordination between FEMA offices themselves. No coordination between FEMA and other states to garner assistance or even other countries (Canada and Mexico both had troops and provisions ready as well as Florida, Minn., California, Arizona, New Mexico and many other states) and they were told that it was not necessary - thank you very much.

If this is how my country would react towards it's own people in the event of another terrorist attack, it scares the shit out of me. Fire that Homeland Security dude Chertoff too, the whole bunch of them are useless. Nothing got done until they brought General Honore in and then FEMA gave him a hard time.

Fire the bastards.

Just fire the whole bunch of them.

edited to say that I too am having a really hard time just turning off the news about this disaster. I have many friends that live in the area and some I have not yet heard from. I'm heartsick and just flat ass angry.

The blog post on the other side of this link pretty much says it all. This should be required reading for EVERY U.S. Citizen.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/bobharris_rss2/153959.html

Unfortunately, the spin machine will work hard to put on the best face instead of owning up to the issue and taking appropriate action.

You realize, don't you, that if you hold the leaders and administrators who are responsible for this pre- and post-Katrina disaster accountable for their actions - if you seriously want to retire, fire, and take action against them - then you are considering a revolt against American authority, the likes of which has not been seen since the nineteenth century. A genuine up-against-the-wall-muthafucka revolution. Because there will be very few in the executive and congressional branches of government left - to say nothing of the state and local officials who, matching the incompetence of Louisiana authorities, would have to go, too.

If that's what you want, then power to the people, baby! But those are the implications, if you follow your sentiments through to the end.

Part of the problem may have been oversimplification on the part of the government. There seems to have been the assumption that it was their job to raise the alarm but up to the residents to evacuate. As one FEMA defender put it "It's not the president's responsibility that every citizen owns a car..." Of course the upshot of this is people lacking the means to evacuate are unable to do so. This is doubly tragic since it puts already vulnerable people in serious danger.

Another reason, at least with elected people, is that the sick, elderly and the poor are probably low on the priority list of the government. A cynical politician might even consider them a burden and a money pit (as oppossed to, say some corporation that can make a fat campaign contibution). Thus the people who truly need help and compassion are overlooked. Afterthoughts. Not that this justifies the government's behavior, but it explains it.



To honest, I don't think FEMA knows knows it's you-know-what from a hole in the ground...

I'm guessing they neglected to consider how many people would need to stay there, how long they would have to stay there, and the ramifications of a crowd living in there with no electricity and power in the middle of summer.

They were probably futzing with the paperwork or filling out forms. To throw them a bone, maybe they wanted a better system to strenthen the levee (or fix cracks) but couldn't get funding.


Probably more "we can't do that it's not in the rule book" bereaucracy bungling.



I'm sorry to hear about your friends, especially the ones you havn't heard from yet.

Our disagreement about the characterization of the Iraqi occupation aside, I've got to say you're my favorite historian.

FOXNews (I know I know ) is just now reporting from their AP feed that Michael Brown, chief of FEMA is being removed from head of the Katrina relief action and possibly further. Developing.

Interesting choice - from a qualifications perspective a good one. He shook things up here in Miami a bit by consolidating senior mngt and changing utilization of resources in order to work as one focal point with local law enforcement. So far as I know (and that's not much in this case), it has worked out fine.

I suspect he is an interim appointment though and it does not say they have actually fired Brown or that he has resigned on his own (though if he has even half a brain or conscience he will).