Conference Calls Detail Katrina Concerns, Failings

[dolo amber]

In the days before Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, officials in local, state and federal governments held a series of telephone conference calls aimed at coordinating their responses to the storm. The sessions were recorded by Walter Maestri, emergency manager for Jefferson Parish, who shared them with NPR.

In tapes of the disaster planning meetings, emergency managers and civic officials evinced a growing concern with the strengthening hurricane's possible effects -- and after the storm made landfall, a growing frustration with the aid effort mounted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

more...


This whole "failure at ALL levels of gov't" line sounds even more flimsy after listening to this. Sounded to me like Blanco, Nagin et. al. pretty well had their shit together. Man, that was pretty hard to listen to...the confidence in FEMA they had in their voices is pretty hard to stomach in retrospect. :grr:

[DeepModem Mom]

1. Conference Calls Detail Katrina Concerns,Failings (explosive tapes on NPR)

NPR: Conference Calls Detail Katrina Concerns, Failings
by Daniel Zwerdling

Morning Edition, September 23, 2005 · In the days before Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, officials in local, state and federal governments held a series of telephone conference calls aimed at coordinating their responses to the storm. The sessions were recorded by Walter Maestri, emergency manager for Jefferson Parish, who shared them with NPR.

In tapes of the disaster planning meetings, emergency managers and civic officials evinced a growing concern with the strengthening hurricane's possible effects -- and after the storm made landfall, a growing frustration with the aid effort mounted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

As emergency preparations gave way to coordinated actions and pleas for equipment, the recorded calls depict an emergency command center in Baton Rouge that became a center of frenzied activity.

As late as Saturday morning -- 48 hours before the storm struck -- officials were debating how best to handle an evacuation. At one point, Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans brought up a troubling issue: If community leaders simultaneously told residents to leave, gridlock could result.

Throughout the weekend, local officials continued in their plans to open disaster shelters. In detailed plans drawn up several years ago, state and federal governments agreed on the need for a network of "special needs" shelters, with emergency generators that could power medical equipment. But in a series of phone calls, officials complained they couldn't find the generators they needed....


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4859329

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. These tapes are going to bury BushCo

in their own bullshit.

Nagin asked on Saturday AM if he should start evacuations and he was told to wait three more hours.

Lot's more good info coming out with these tapes. People need to hear them.

[Hissyspit]

3. Earlier thread, without link... just for reference

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4858952

[Mountainman]

12. They are already in a crisis management mode. I think the efforts they

are going through to cover this up is much bigger than the efforts to help the victims out.

[MnFats]

13. Where is Sen. Coleman's permanent subcommitte/investigations?

"My" senator actually has a chance to get off his ass and do something beside fawning over the Bush Administration...

[HeeBGBz]

4. I was watching Nagin in the days before the storm

Every time I saw him he was urging people to get out. I thought he was pretty cool. It was his seriousness that sobered me to the reality that we were gonna get our asses kicked. I was on the MS coast though, and I know nothing much of N.O. politics.

I was surprised to see people rag on him so badly after the storm.

[fasttense]

5. Local officials at least tried to do something.

Brush didn't try and didn't even fake it like he is now.

[hang a left]

6. No wonder they want the "investigation"

behind closed doors. Do these tapes need to be sent to Olbermann?

Nominated.

[Gman]

16. And to Tim Russert

[goclark]

17. Not sure Tim should have them after his performance this AM

on Meet the Press. His Rove Level is pretty high.

Keith and Jon Stewart and Anderson Cooper I would contact.

[DeepModem Mom]

18. Has there been no coverage beyond NPR?

I've been away for the weekend, and I'm wondering. Seems to me the tapes deserve wide coverage --

[KoKo]

7. Cheers! for Walter Maestri, emergency manager for Jefferson Parish

Was he the one whose mother died in the Nursing Home while he was trying to save people? The one who every day told his mother that someone was coming...someone was coming and on the 5th day she drowned. :cry:

The mayor of Jefferson Parish, Walter Broussard related that story...and I wondered if it was Maestri's mother.

ON EDIT: Just found out it wasn't Maestri's mom it was someone else named Rodriques and Broussard was off a couple of days in his recollection. Subsequent reporting identified the man whom Broussard was referring to in the Meet the Press interview as Thomas Rodrigue, the Jefferson Parish emergency services director. Contacted on Friday by MSNBC.com, Rodrigue acknowledged that his 92-year-old mother and more than 30 other people died in the St. Rita nursing home. They had not been evacuated and the flood waters overtook the residence.

Thank goodness he taped those conversations. Everyone should tape any dealings with them because if you don't they will lie and lie and lie.
And, we will never get any info released from the Bushies because everything is under lock and key with the "Official Secrets Act" they've dug up. :-(

[merh]

8. They are still making promises they can't or won't keep.

:argh: Now Rita's winds and rains and tides are a threat to Hancock County in Mississippi - it was devasated by Katrina and many folks are still in tents. Do they even know what they are facing over the next day or 2? Hancock County was just under a tornadoe warning. Is the federal government concerned about these Katrina survivors.

:cry:

[DeepModem Mom]

9. Kick to top!

[dolo amber]

10. Thanks, DM

:hi:

I'm still fuming over this. :grr:

[Straight Shooter]

11. This time the bush administration may not find a scapegoat.

They keep trying to pass the blame but it won't work. There are too many people involved and not all of them are going to roll over just because Rove tells them to.

It would be a good move for NPR to continue exposing the bush administration and its cascade of failures in responsibility.

[young_at_heart]

14. Cartoon in newspaper shows Nagin saying "Come back"---"Go away"

He's saying this over and over and Bush is on the side saying "Maybe I was a bit hasty in accepting all the blame". The cartoonist obviously thinks Nagin caused the problems and has big sympathy for the innocent bystander, Bush.

[Roland99]

15. For want of a few backup generators (that were in Iraq)

Interesting. For want of a few backup generators (that were in Iraq), communications went down and that seems to have been costly.

And that guy saying "we just need to do what we can do to improve the situation" sounded like some typical government, know-nothing political hack.

And look at this:

Offer of buses fell between the cracks
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0509230350sep23,1,1064399.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

Pantuso, whose members include some of the nation's largest motor coach companies, including Greyhound and Coach USA, eventually learned that the job of extracting tens of thousands of residents from flooded New Orleans wasn't being handled by FEMA at all.

Instead the agency had farmed the work out to a trucking logistics firm, Landstar Express America, which in turn hired a limousine company, which in turn engaged a travel management company.

<...>

Though it was well-known that New Orleans, much of it below sea level, would flood in a major hurricane, Landstar, the Jacksonville company that held a federal contract that at the time was worth up to $100 million annually for disaster transportation, did not ask its subcontractor, Carey Limousine, to order buses until the early hours of Aug. 30, roughly 18 hours after the storm hit, according to Sally Snead, a Carey senior vice president who headed the bus roundup.

<...>

She said Landstar turned to her company for buses Sunday after learning from Carey's Internet site that it had a meetings and events division that touted its ability to move large groups of people. "They really found us on the Web site," Snead said.

[SpiralHawk]

19. FEMA LIHOP

eom

[MissMarple]

20. The contrast between the response to Texas and to Louisiana is damning.

And, as for Mississippi, Haley Barbour should be ashamed for supporting an administration that literally abandoned large sections of his state. He knows full well the suffering Mississippi citizens are going through. Rita victims get help, Katrina's are still on their own, or now, dead from neglect, from abandonment.

[illuminaughty]

21. Wow! This is great. I haven't heard these tapes

I'm starting to feel the Texas/Louisiana war on a personal level.

With half family in Lufkin and half now evacuated in Alexandria,LA.
(they live near Lake Charles), the phone calls each day have gotten nastier and nastier.

There is so much blame going on between the local governments, the feds, etc. that these two states are having a mini-civil war.

[texpatriot2004]

22. Thanks for this link about Katrina. I am finally listening now. n/t

[texpatriot2004]

23. Thanks to Mr. Maestri (sp?) n/t