Originally posted by loam
Frankly, I'm tired of the relentless drone that local and state governments are primarily responsible for the response to disasters such as Katrina...

Why is NO ONE asking if that MAKES sense???!!???

Perhaps because it is a fact.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency - a former independent agency that became part of the new Department of Homeland Security in March 2003 - is tasked with responding to, planning for, recovering from and mitigating against disasters/

They may not be required to be the "first responders", as everyone is talking about, but, as their mission statement states, they are supposed to RESPOND TO, PLAN FOR, help RECOVER FROM, and MITIGATE against disasters.

Granted, yes, the state and local government are to blame for not following through on their "plans", but FEMA was part of those plans to get those people out. FEMA AND the local and state government held exercises that demonstrated how they (they meaning FEMA AND the local/state government) would/could evacuate 1,000,000 from the area, as well as rescuing 300,000 who were or would remain trapped by the flood waters. But that was WITH the assistance of FEMA. FEMA was part of the equation!

We ran into the same problem in 1992 with Hurricane Andrew, and we ran into the same problem in 2001 with the terrorist attacks. The ENTIRE SYSTEM failed and it needs to be fixed. The way it is set up right now is obviously flawed. Maybe FEMA NEEDS to be the "first responder". When a foreseeable disaster (ie. a hurricane) is imminent, then maybe there should be someone from FEMA on hand to take the reigns as soon as it occurs.

As far as the future goes, we, as Americans, are now tasked with doing our damned best to make it right for ALL of those affected/involved, as well as the rest of entire nation and make sure something like this never happens again.

If it does, well, then we have only ourselves to blame.

EDIT: BTW, this memo proves nothing more than that the Director of FEMA had no idea of the scope of the destruction that occured along the Gulf Coast. Apparently, none of the Federal Government did.

[edit on 7-9-2005 by elderban]

Originally posted by cjf
Perhaps because it is a fact.

Obviously, you missed the question.

on the part of the mainstream media and viewing public.

You displace 1.2 million people. You have several million acre-feet of water pour into the high-density residential area of a major city. Utilities are cut on a regional scale, america's oil processing system is crippled.

But you still expect the Feds to come in and make everything OK, and make sure no one misses a meal or is otherwise inconvenienced.

And then you pass out the hate-o-raid for everyone who tried to do something about it.

In sum, we have become so spoiled that we are now OVER-CIVILIZED.

oh well, who are you gonna sue about it?

Originally posted by dr_strangecraft

on the part of the mainstream media and viewing public.

You displace 1.2 million people. You have several million acre-feet of water pour into the high-density residential area of a major city. Utilities are cut on a regional scale, america's oil processing system is crippled.

But you still expect the Feds to come in and make everything OK, and make sure no one misses a meal or is otherwise inconvenienced.

And then you pass out the hate-o-raid for everyone who tried to do something about it.

In sum, we have become so spoiled that we are now OVER-CIVILIZED.

oh well, who are you gonna sue about it?

I don't expect them not to miss a beat, after all, we're all human, we all make mistakes, but I also don't think our expectations are unreasonable when the government sits there and tells us after 9/11, after the formation of the DoHS, after BILLIONS of dollars of taxpayers money have been spent, that "everything is better". It's not. We haven't moved forward at all since 2001, or since 1992 for that matter. We're pretty much in the same place we were prior to 2001.

And, if we can't handle a disaster after 9/11, how can we handle another terrorist attack?

I feel like I've been lied to. I feel like I've been let down. I'm embarrased right now to admit that I'm an American. Don't you think other countries are looking at us right now laughing their asses off and making comments that we can't handle disasters on our own soil? I'm sure they are!

I may not be able to sue anyone, but I certainly do have the power, and right, to question them and their actions. I also have the power to take them out of office, or ask that people be fired for I am a voter!

[edit on 8-9-2005 by elderban]

Originally posted by elderban

Don't you think other countries are looking at us right now laughing their asses off and making comments that we can't handle disasters on our own soil? I'm sure they are!

Well, of course. Everybody likes to feel superior, and people want to think that if a horrible thing happened to you, then you probably deserved it somehow.

But then, you cannot control what other people think of you. And if you live your life trying to please or impress other people, you will certainly fail, and fail to enjoy your life at all.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't make it better. And I definitely smell incompetence at FEMA. And Bush's response was a PR blunder, even from him (and that's saying something!) One of his mistakes was to act like a businessman, and not "micro-manage" the people below him. In business, you don't fiddle with mid-level management during a crisis. But in politics, laissez-faire looks like apathy.

On the other hand, I personally think Congress is one of the reasons FEMA is so FEMA'd up in the first place. Congress moved all the little boxes on the flow-chart around, and made every position a political appointment in the wake of 9-11.

At first, the finger-pointing at the Mayor of New Orleans seemed like a witch-hunt to me. But then AFTER Katrina he's said some things that were just tragic, and make me think he's pretty overwhelmed by the sudden gravity of his position. His ordering the natguard to EVICT people is one startling examle, since he's a civilian. Another is his "Blame Bush" speech, when Bush never pointed a finger at him first. I'm afraid some democrat handlers were whispering in the mayor's ear when he did that. I think that gave him the public image of being a blamer and a buck-passer. I doubt HE'LL be getting re-elected after that speech.

And LAGOV is about the same.

Not being there, I'm only guessing. But when I'd been in disaster response, I remember finding out that no elected officials had actually READ the disaster plan they were supposed to implement. I suspect every official you can name of the same failing.

So I don't want to act like "this is the best of all possible worlds." But I think a lot of people (sitting in comfy chairs a long way from New Orleans) are complaining like this whole cluster was somehow planned.

I hope that before we leap in and blindly change all the little boxes in the flow chart that we will ask ourselves how we want a huge bureaucracy to serve people in the first place.

I said, when I went into law enforcement, that I wanted to meet an evil genius, just like in the comic books.

Of course I never did.

But I did get to meet a whole bunch of evil idiots.