On Sat, 3 Sep 2005 00:00:01 -0700, "presley"
wrote:
I'm not quite sure what you are arguing, Roy. I fear that you're sadly
misinformed. Here's a pdf of the letter of Louisiana Governor Blanco
requesting immediate declaration of emergency at least 24 hours prior to
landfall - the letter was delivered the morning of Sunday, August 28th. In
the body of the letter, you will see that the Louisiana governor initiated
the Lousiana emergency plan beginning on Friday, the 26th. She based that
plan on National Weather Service predictions of a potential Louisiana
landfall. By Saturday afternoon, the general landfall area of the hurricane
was virtually certain. The federal government, particularly FEMA, is
supposed to monitor those Hurricane reports and anticipate needs.
It failed
"Friday, Aug. 26: At 11 p.m., Katrina is forecast to make landfall
near New Orleans. (Not the 4 days before the original poster stated)
"Saturday, Aug. 27: President Bush declares a state of emergency in
Louisiana. White House says FEMA officials are coordinating with
authorities in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, and have
supplies ready. Authorities advise Gulf Coast evacuation.
"Sunday: Bush declares emergencies for Mississippi, Florida and
Alabama. Evacuations ordered for New Orleans. Evacuation orders are
also posted along the Mississippi and Alabama coasts, and in barrier
islands of the Florida Panhandle. FEMA moves supplies from centers in
Atlanta and Denton, Texas, to areas closer to where authorities think
the storm will create a need. "
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/03/Wo...builds__.shtml
to do so. This is a catastrophic failure of FEMA and the Office of Homeland
Security. It is an indictment of short-sighted cost-saving by the Bush
Administration to pay for the Gulf War. FEMA as an agency was basically
gutted to create the Department of Homeland Security. The focus of the
agency went from disaster preparedness to terrorism preparedness. The
National Guards of all states have been decimated by deployments to Iraq.
People from foreign nations are watching our news broadcasts with open-jawed
amazement. How could the head of FEMA and the head of Homeland Security have
argued on TV interviews that there were NO people stranded at the New
Orleans Convention Center on Thursday morning - until the interviewers
literally turned them around to look at the TV pictures? With completely
open air space and no wind danger from Tuesday, August 30 onward, why were
there not continuous sorties of aircraft doing drops of essential supplies -
especially water and food?
Which were where, and, more importantly, packaged for air drops?
And as devastated as the Mississippi coast was,
the population base is much smaller than the New Orleans metropolitan area.
(Perhaps 200,000 total vs. 1,000,000 or more) . There were air bases in
Florida and Texas that were completely unaffected, from which these sorties
could have been launched.
If you have been following the TV as you say you have you already know
that sorties were being flown, at least out of NAS Pensacola, to
rescue folks---these continue.
Why were there no ships in Tampa Bay or Galveston
Bay ready to be deployed the instant the hurricane passed?
Are you advocating we have a bigger Navy so that we can home-port
ships all over the coasts to be ready in just in case case there is a
disaster? I'm for the biggest Navy you can afford.
I was attempting to respond to the O.P.s erroneous statements that it
was going to take up to 2 weeks for the Navy to get there.
And I will refer you to this interesting article re the military's
performance in view of its relationship to FEMA:
Red tape keeping much of military on sidelines
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...me.xml&items=6
All I can say is,
God help us all if there were a significant terrorist attack on any major
city.
I know you haven't fogotten 9/11
I am LIVID. Our president needs to be held accountable.
And I'm sure he and "they" will be. I wrote initially because I am in
the news business and it bothers me when folks, like the O.P. come
forth with these vast assertions of what everyone knew (knows), which,
upon review, turn out to be half-vast statements of non-facts.