Question: why aren't we mad at the mayor and the governor?

[theboss]

The Bush budget regarding the levees and the fact that too many of our resources are in Iraq are obvious points of complaint.

But the leadership in New Orleans and Louisiana appears to be utterly overwhelmed. The city clearly has no kind of emergency management plan, the police department is participating in the looting, it doesn't look like they could get the national guard in town if the wanted to, and the SuperDome idea looks like it was concocted about twenty minutes before the storm hit.

Granted, I've been saying for days that Civil Defense in this country has been a joke since the 50s and should have been a top priority since 9/11. Most cities would probably failt the test New Orleans is facing. But the leadership across the board is failing in such a spectacular manner that I am stunned. It's making me grateful that Anthony Williams is in charge in DC. I have a hundred issues with him, but he's been more than competent during weather emergencies and other crises.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. A lot of us have also mentioned them as well. And HomeLand Security

[Oreo]

4. The mayor is MIA and the gov is praising the relief efforts of the Feds

There is nothing good about this relief effort. It's a catastrophe in and of itsself

[CottonBear]

24. reportedly, mayor is at convention center & ready to march out refugees.

See this live TV link:
http://www.wwltv.com/perl/common/video/wmPlayer.pl?title=beloint_wfaa&props=livenoad

[bribri16]

31. Because the actual "evacuation" went smoothly. Things began to fall

apart AFTER the evacuation. Many people did not want to leave in order to protect their "things" from looters. Others just didn't want to leave their homes because they had no where to go. And still the bulk of the poor WANTED to leave but COULDN't because they had no way out. If i were to fault the mayor and the governor it would be because there was no plan to evacuate the truly poor way ahead of hurricane...no shelters set up and information letting them know where they would be going. But this type of planning was not done in MS or AL either so stop blaming the black mayor and the white female governor. Katrina is just so tragic in all aspects.
What is crminal is that some Federal mobilization is just now beginning.

[theboss]

32. Why bring their race and gender into it?

I didn't.

[Horse with no Name]

2. They have done their best with the rug ripped out from underneath them

I have no doubt that the ONLY reason anyone has been saved in this half-assed rescue attempt is because THEY care about their city.

[blurp]

29. Totally unprepared and should be charged with negligent homicide.

The fact is they totally blew off the threat of a hurricane hitting NO. They've had plenty of near misses. Did those near misses do anything to motivate them to prepare? Apparently not. If anything, it convinced them that they could get away with doing nothing.

And how long did they wait to order an evacuation? The National Hurricane Center had this thing headed straight for New Orleans Friday night. All the computer models had converged on NO. There were still debating ordering an evacuation Sunday morning!

Then after the destruction we find out just how much planning they had done: zip, nada, zero, none.

The picture Friday evening:

[shoelace414]

3. Because

the Mayor doesn't have a city anymore.

the Governor doesn't have an army anymore.. it's in Iraq.

the Feds are the only entity capable of handing something this massive. (plus it's also Alabama and Mississippi)

[saracat]

5. The Governor and Mayor counted on the Feds. The Feds started to work on

levees and were taken away to work on Iraq. The LA govermne t kept getting assurances that work would be done. Their mistake , like all of Congress was to believe Bush.

[Oreo]

10. If that's the case...

Why is the gov praising Bush?

[Horse with no Name]

21. Perhaps because she still has to give the people left in the city hope

She can't take their hope away and still has to carry a fascade that they are working to get them out.
I have a good feeling that when this is all over...that will be the time of reckoning.
Now is not the time for officials to start pointing blame.
Someone needs to give people confidence.

[Midlodemocrat]

6. Because they didn't cut funding to the Army Corps of

Engineers to bolster the levees and they didn't sent the LANG to Iraq.

[Walt Starr]

7. Homeland Security is what handles this, not the locals any more

This sort of disaster is well beyond the capabilities of local governments, and that has been the case for more than a century.

Federal Government response, especially in the hours after a disaster of this scale, is critical.

[theboss]

27. That is true to a degree

But the city and state just can't throw up their hands and look to Washington for help. I just can't believe things would deteriorate this quickly in other cities that I consider well-run - NYC, DC (believe it or not), Chicago, Boston. The city still plays a large role in the evacuation and the sheltering aspect which has been a total disaster. And there is National Guard still in Lousiana but they don't look like they have a clue what to do.

[sandnsea]

8. They may be overruled

I have been less than impressed with them as well, but from what I'm gathering, Homeland Security is in control and the mayor and governor may not have the authority they need. Giving the benefit of the doubt until I know for sure.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

9. Because it is the FEDERAL government who handles emergencies.

FEMA=Federal Emergency Management Agency
The NATIONAL Guard.

The mayor and Governor are THERE and begging the GOVERNMENT for help....

[TomInTib]

18. Exactly...

I truly cannot understand the cluelessness of some of the folks on DU regarding this.
This is a Federal (DHS/FEMA) deal. The locals can only run local-i.e. police, fire, sheriff, etc., and request Fed Aid.

[DWolper]

37. Wrong

We are the United STATES of America. Everything can not be run from Washington. The truth is that:
1: FEMA - Aid is requested and FEMA is a RESPONSE agency. It's not up to the FEDERAL government to issue evacuation orders, etc.

2: NATIONAL GUARD - Is under the DIRECT CONTROL of the governors of the fifty states. The Guard can be federalized and only "loaned" for use by the STATES to the federal government, as they have done for Iraq.

3: The Mayor and Governor are BEGGING for help because they have neglected to address the concerns for decades. Nobody here should be proud of that.

It's always easy to blame the FEDERAL government - especially for things that are NOT their responsibility in the first place. Local planning for a disaster like this has been abysmal. Now that we're at this point, the feds must, and appear to be, stepping up. To deny that is silly politics. All this framing EVERYTHING around our politics is getting old. Bush does a lot of things wrong, but I fail to see how the federal government can be blamed for Katrina.

[Libby2]

11. I'm mad at all of them

I don't care about the past right now.
Just get those people some help NOW.

[MsTryska]

12. This is something so many people fail to understand.....

Social Services and City Services come from 3 different places...

City taxes, State taxes and Federal taxes.



Cut the Federal out of the way, and State and City have to figure out a way to fund everything, with 33% less paycheck (prolly more like 50-75% less considering the tax base).


The City and State are overhwelmed, and most likely spent their money just keeping the social services side of things afloat (and that jsut barely) let alone setting aside funds for Urban Planning.


essentially these NeoCon whackjobs have succeeded in "starving the beast" to use Grover Norquist's words.

And what we see in N.O. is what a starving beast looks like.

[theboss]

20. I understand that perfectly well

And it's a crime.

But starving the beast can't be blamed for the fact that New Orleans apparently had no plan for evacuation, housing those left behind, and keeping law and order during the rescue efforts.

[MsTryska]

30. Yes it can.

When you have limited funds and as needy a community as NO apparently has - you don't have the funds to hire the people to do the disaster recovery stuff for you.


You decide to wing it.


It's like anyone of us being broke - you decide to stop watching cable. Maybe let the phone get shut off for a month or two til you can get the money - let the insurance lapse because it's an extra expense, etc, etc.

[Qibing Zero]

13. The mayor has been telling it like it is from what I've seen.

The governor on the other hand only seems to care about the looting and what the feds tell her.

[intheflow]

33. That's how I read the situation, too.

the mayor seems like a man of integrity, but frustrated & stymied by lack of planning, funding cuts, and lag time of rescue effort.

the governor just seems like a dick.

[davidinalameda]

14. how do you plan for a disaster of this magnitude

and don't slam all the cops just because a few were looting

[Just Me]

15. Because they were both pissed that the funding for the levy and,...

,...other programs created specifically in the event of this kind of tragedy was practically DESTROYED by the Bushco/neocon regime.

[crispini]

16. Sure, I'll be mad at them too. Sounds good to me.

I'm mad at everyone. I have more than enough mad to go around.

[spuddonna]

17. From what I've heard, Mayor Nagin, and the Gov...

were on the spot, doing what they could asap...

The Mayor and the Gov. were trying since Monday to get the Army Corp of Engineers and military helicopters to stop the levee flooding, but the fed govt was not responding to their requests.

The Mayor was on a bus on Sunday night driving through NO, trying to get people to get to the Superdome...

I think that the local govt has been doing their best, but they lost so much of their ability to deal with this due to the flooding and roads being impassible...

[demo dutch]

19. Because they're getting the cold shoulder from GW! that pretty clear

there boths dems!

[HamdenRice]

22. They don't have the resources compared to the feds ..

This is a multi jurisdiction, multi state catastrophe -- that's what the FEDERAL emergency Management System is for.

The NY Times former editor gave them a backhanded compliment in their editorial saying that in a region where the government is usually corrupt and incompetent, they have done very well, but bush is completely absent.

quote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1560139,00.html

Almost as unbelievable as Katrina itself is the fact that the leader of the free world has been outshone by the elected leaders of a region renowned for governmental ineptitude. Louisiana's anguished governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, climbed into a helicopter at the first possible moment to survey what may become the worst weather-related disaster in American history. She might even have been able to stop the looting in New Orleans if the 141st Field Artillery of the Louisiana Army National Guard had not been in Iraq for the past 11 months. They are among thousands of Southern guardsmen who could have been federalised by the stroke of a pen had they not been deployed in a phony war. Even Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a tiresome blowhard as chairman of the Republican National Committee, has shone a throat-catching public sorrow and sleepless diligence that puts Bush to shame.

This president, who flew away on Monday to fundraisers in the west while the hurricane blew away entire towns in coastal Mississippi, is very much his father's son when it comes to the kinds of emergencies that used to call forth immediate White House action before its Bushite captivity. When he was president, his father did not visit Miami after Hurricane Andrew, nor for that matter, did he mind being photographed tooling his golf cart around Kennebunkport while American troops died in the first Iraq war. Now the younger Bush seems determined to show his successors how to holiday through an apocalypse. Consider the visible federal leadership presence in Louisiana on the day that the levee broke, a full day after the hurricane first hit. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the US government department charged with disaster preparation and response, issued the usual promises. Bush, for his part, urged people not to stay where they were, even if their evacuation residence might be the roofless, toilet-clogged Superdome.

Meanwhile, in Baton Rouge, an army colonel seemed to be the most senior federal official at a televised news conference called to announce a Corps of Engineers plan to drop sand bags into the raceway of the broken levee.

[KoKo]

36. Thanks Hamden...this is an excellent read to remind us where the

true blame lies. And, we have to read it from a Brit newspaper because our own somehow lack the balls.

[Lindsay]

23. Not too many minutes ago,

CNN broadcast an SOS from the Mayor, talking about the problem of the people at the convention center and the lack of buses to move them.

However he may have erred before the storm, the man has no resources now. All he can do is ask for help. (And I'm guessing ain't nobody in FEMA returning his calls.)

[earth mom]

25. It's obvious that they've been totally screwed over by *Co- they can't

say too much because if they do there will NEVER EVER be any help!

:grr: :grr: :grr:

[LisaM]

26. The governor is SUPPOSED to have access to the National Guard

And a catastrophe of this scope is a Federal issue. Look how the feds were on the spot when Jebbie's state got hit.

[tabasco]

28. The scale of this disaster make it a matter of national leadership.

The mayor and governor simply do not have the resources to respond to something like this. The President does have the resources. He has squandered the resources rather than plan and prepare.

[PA Democrat]

34. Exactly

And also consider that Bush has robbed the state and city of many of the resources they normally would have had by sending their national Guard along with most of its equipment to Iraq.

[AlCzervik]

35. She been in office for 9 months---better question is who controls

the LA congress? What about the Gov. she replaced, where is he?