Katrina response

This comprehensive and exhaustive look at the Katrina response timeline shows how much the Federal government did, tried to do and was prevented from doing in response to the Hurricane; the steps taken and not taken by Louisiana and New Orleans versus the actions taken by Mississippi; and who said what and when. The Federal government comes off MUCH better in this compilation of news reports than in the recent "perspective" news pieces that fail to address the facts that were known and actions taken just 7-10 days earlier.

In addition, read this piece from Craig Martelle, who has received FEMA training. His main point (and one not heard enough in the news): FEMA IS NOT A FIRST RESPONDER! The whole disaster response system relies on the states first, FEMA later. That's why you don't remember hearing cries about Pres. Bush's mismanagement of the Florida hurricanes last year -- his brother capably handled the disasters. Ditto 9/11 New York: Giuliani, the FDNY and the NYPD all acted responsibly and capably. Compare that to Ray Nagin, the NOPD and the execrable Kathleen Blanco.

And, as Mark Steyn notes, this fact is becoming more apparent: "To give the city credit, it has a lovely "Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan" for hurricanes. The only flaw in the plan is that the person charged with putting it into effect is the mayor. And he didn't."

Indeed, the signature image of this disaster will likely end up being the infamous Flooded Schoolbuses photo that I linked to earlier. More Steyn to sum up:

Consider the signature image of the flood: an aerial shot of 255 school buses neatly parked at one city lot, their fuel tanks leaking gasoline into the urban lake. An enterprising blogger, Bryan Preston, worked out that each bus had 66 seats, which meant that the vehicles at just that one lot could have ferried out 16,830 people. Instead of entrusting its most vulnerable citizens to the gang-infested faecal hell of the Superdome, New Orleans had more than enough municipal transport on hand to have got almost everyone out in a couple of runs last Sunday.

Why didn't they? Well, the mayor didn't give the order. OK, but how about school board officials, or the fellows with the public schools transportation department, or the guy who runs that motor pool, or the individual bus drivers? If it ever occurred to any of them that these were potentially useful evacuation assets, they kept it to themselves.

So the first school bus to escape New Orleans and make it to safety in Texas was one that had been abandoned on a city street. A party of sodden citizens, ranging from the elderly to an eight-day-old baby, were desperate to get out, hopped aboard and got teenager Jabbor Gibson to drive them 13 hours non-stop to Houston. He'd never driven a bus before, and the authorities back in New Orleans may yet prosecute him.