To Those Beltway Critics of First Responders from FEMA

83 years ago the Mississippi rolled into New Orleans - but a comprehensive solution to flooding in that city was never carried out - a project so massive that the National Geographic now reports it would take 20 - 25 years to complete. New Orleans flooded again forty years later when Hurricane Betsy came ashore (the crucial difference in the casualty count between then and now? Where was enforcmement of the mandatory evacuation order by New Orleans officials - which came only after pleading by President Bush himself last weekend, days before the storm came onshore?). The insurance industry journal Risk & Insurance was reporting on the "Katrina" scenario all the way back in 2000 - and brought up (again - as I heard this discussed back in 1976 when visiting New Orleans) that it would perhaps be better (and cheaper) if the city were relocated on higher ground to the north of Lake Ponchatrain. And just like the National Geographic last year, population growth and development in the delta region (eradicating wetlands and barrier islands) and even the construction of levees themselves (causing the "protected" land to sink) are factors making the risks associated with hurricanes greater and greater every year.

You can't "Blame Bush" for that! Just ask Bill Clinton - who is getting blamed now too!

So, to all those critics - all I can say is, read your history. And then read your Bible.

Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
Isaiah 58:9-12 (NIV)

Those that wish to criticize would be advised to roll up their sleeves and help out. There will be plenty of time for talking later. For sure we should learn the lessons (and here), but petty, bitter acrimony will only hurt you in the end - not Bush - got that Kanye West? People are hurting, and need help. And Americans are responding, to get the job done. Those who want to play politics right now do so at their peril - got that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? Americans outside the Beltway want to do what's required - as quickly as possible. That is the true, enduring nature of the American people - no matter what the weather.

Old Glory: bowed but never out

Weather experts tell us other American metropolitan areas at risk of calamitous flooding include: Tampa and Miami, Florida; Galveston, Texas; Wilmington, Delaware; and Long Island, New York. The question to ask is clear: should we be spending multi-billions in each of those places to protect from flood damage - as well as in New Orleans? To put the New Orleans situation in proper perspective, all of these factors need to be part of the dialogue. And, once again, mainstream media is failing miserably in that task.

As they are in understanding why places like Florida work so well with FEMA, while Louisiana's leadership is given to clueless histrionics (and here) about their powerlessness in the face of the very scenarios they were elected to plan for with table top exercises and public education campaigns. They might want to get up to speed on this care of Ambra Nykol. By the way, it is these folks (Board of Levee Commissioners of Orleans Levee District) that the media should be hunting down regarding why the New Orleans disaster happened, and if there was any objectivity in the media - they would be doing just that. Let's be clear: it is not the federal government's responsibility to play watchdog on every city and county government agency in America. If you want to play that game, we can go back through every unfortunate occurrence during the Clinton years and place blame on him for his budgetary priorities. Sorry, but "that dog don't hunt" - and the American people know it.

Urbane Update: For you Daily Kos readers, "First Responders" are local folks all around the country - doing Emergency Management Services (EMS) work in a variety of professions - our brave police and fire department uniformed personnel, volunteer Urban Search and Rescue (SAR) teams, and amateur radio emergency service (ARES) specialists - for example. They also include folks like bus drivers, who are put to work according to well thought-out and tested plans to evacuate people from flood-prone and other disaster-ravaged areas. Because that is what local governments do, with support from state leaders - coordinated from Emergency Operations Centers (EOC).

So, what about New Orleans? Their plan is here and here - supported by their state's plans here. You can see that it is all very well thought out and complete, right down to how to evacuate the homeless and infirm. The problem is, THEY NEVER EXECUTED ON THEIR PLAN. And not even Bill Clinton could have changed that fact. So FEMA itself was thrust into the position of acting as a first responder, something the agency was never designed to do. FEMA was not designed to conduct rescues, or even be the lead agency coordinating military assistance - that is the job of local and state government leaders. But in the case of New Orleans, the federal government was forced to become first responders. The question will need to be asked (later - after rescue and recovery operations are complete, and the refugees are stabilized), WHY did the local and state response fail?

LATER we can ask: why did things break down in New Orleans, thrusting FEMA into the situation of stepping up to provide overall coordination of emergency response? That is what future investigations will determine. Right now the need is to help people and save lives. As Lee Iacocca used to say, "lead, follow or get out of the way." I respectfully suggest that the chattering classes get out of the way, because you are not helping at all. These folks are: please make a generous donation right away.

Postscript: Facts are stubborn things, and here are some more care of Jim Miller on Politics regarding the all-important timeline of events leading up to the hurricane and flooding in New Orleans:
72 Hours? Or 48 hours? Or 24 hours? The New Orleans evacuation plan assumed that the city would have 72 hours to evacuate. But if you read this detailed post from Reverend Sensing, you'll see that it was not clear until about 24 hours before Katrina hit that it would hit the city and that it would be a category 4 or 5 storm.The storm hit New Orleans Monday morning at about 8 AM, local time. Three days before, Friday morning, Katrina was hundreds of miles away, and just a category 2 storm. It was predicted to strengthen and move toward New Orleans, but as we all know, weather predictions that far out are often wrong. Still, that is when — according to the official plan — that New Orleans was supposed to begin its evacuation.Mayor Nagin actually waited until 5 PM Saturday to suggest that residents leave. And he waited until Sunday morning, just 23 hours before the storm hit, to issue an evacuation order.Reverend Sensing thinks that, at best, Mayor Nagin could have ordered an evacuation Saturday morning, that is, about 48 hours before Katrina hit. But this just shows that the 72 hour plan was unrealistic. We can not predict the course and strength of hurricanes accurately enough, 72 hours in advance, so that a 72 hour evacuation plan could work. If nothing else, there will be too much resistance from inhabitants of the threatened area, most of whom will have seen other hurricanes weaken and swerve. Mayor Nagin said that one reason he postponed even the evacuation warning was that he feared lawsuits from businesses that lost customers.So a 72 hour evacuation plan is not realistic. But a 48 hour plan might be. Many left before Mayor Nagin's Saturday evening suggestion and many more left before his Sunday morning order. Estimates I've seen are that about 80 percent of the population did get out. That suggests to me that close to 100 percent could have gotten out in 48 hours had the order been given in time and had the evacuation been handled better. For example, Louisiana has a plan for converting its highways to what they call "contraflow" so that both sides of a highway can be used for evacuations. They did not switch to this system until 4 PM on Saturday, a delay that needs explanation.Most baffling of all is the failure of Mayor Nagin to follow the city's own plan to use buses to evacuate those who did not have their own transportation. I find this decision, or non-decision, so extraordinary that I hope there is some explanation for it, other than the obvious one — gross incompetence.(I used Rich Moran's useful timeline in writing this post. I did find one error in it; he says that the contraflow was started by the city of New Orleans at noon on Sunday, but the article he links to says this:
State officials launched contraflow in the New Orleans area Saturday at 4 p.m. and announced it would end Sunday at 4 p.m. Officials said they needed to remove police directing contraflow traffic to safe locations. And I am troubled by his almost complete reliance on a single newspaper, the Times-Picayune, which was having its own problems during the storm. And has been hysterical, a word I do not use lightly, since the storm.)