Katrina and federalism
From PhiloWiki
- "The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."
- For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.
- Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out."
- "The Washington Post reported Sunday that Bush administration officials sent a draft legal memorandum to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco just before midnight Friday asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, according to a source within the state's emergency operations center. Administration officials had been seeking direct unified control over local police and National Guard units that would otherwise be under the Governor's jurisdiction. According to a senior Bush official, the President has the power (by state request or unilaterally) to federalize National Guard troops and put down civil unrest under the Insurrection Act [text; 2001 Congressional testimony on potential legal and other problems with federalizing the Guard during state emergencies, PDF]. Suspecting a political motive, however, state officials refused to make the request..."
- "Almost immediately after Hurricane Katrina passed through New Orleans, Democrats began criticizing the Bush Administration for supposedly poor handling of the situation. The so-called Mainstream Media constantly aired scenes of death and destruction while depicting heroic rescue efforts as being "inadequate" or "too little too late." As with the War on Terror, the Left is again attempting to portray President Bush as being both incompetent and uncaring. On the surface it might appear that this is simply another facet of the ongoing Democrat smear campaign against President Bush. There is, however, another reason and the double hypocrisy involved here is sickening when one takes into account the human suffering involved.
- It has been my experience that when liberals collectively make an accusation against the Right, it is to cover the fact that the Left is actually the guilty party. Think back to the recent presidential election, when liberals all over the country were screaming about voter disenfranchisement, and all the while the MSM largely ignored the many findings of tampering and voter intimidation on the part of the Democrats. This is standard operating procedure for the Left's unholy triad in government, the MSM, and the Blogosphere."
- "Mama Media has taught me the correct answer to that: the response was too slow -- inexcusably slow, criminally slow. But the response to Katrina was perhaps the fastest ever to a major hurricane; and the size of the response was the largest ever mounted to any hurricane. So if the largest, fastest response ever is too little, too late, perhaps we need to look deeper to find the real Federal failure -- because we all know that it was a huge Federal failure.
- After having considered the issue at depth, I believe I have identified several areas of true Federal failure. Always being one who would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, I present here a list of proposed changes in Federal response that would have, in hindsight, prevented the Katrina debacle."
- "Just before midnight on August 26, three days before Katrina was to make landfall, Kathleen Blanco received a phone call from George Bush. The president had been through a series of briefings from Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and knew the potential dangers to New Orleans and the surrounding area from a storm the size of Katrina. Now he was attempting to convince the Governor of Louisiana that she needed to take immediate action.
- His pleas fell on deaf ears. It seemed that the Governor was more concerned with the legalities of accepting federal assistance, and the appearance that her office could not handle the emergency."
