Bush accepts full responsibility for Katrina response., page 3

People, I work largely with state government in my commonwealth of Kentucky. I was recently involved in a federal mandated program called NIMS or NIMCAST. National Incident Mahagment System. Ours was the first state to become federally certified through NIMS. In doing this work, it became painfully obvious that emergency situations are handled completely different coast to coast here in the US. This program was an attempt by the feds to get a handle on how prepared each state is to handle disaster whether man made or not. This was directed by the governor through the STATE OFFICE of Homeland Security.

Point is this, those who want to play their little stupid political crybaby games can and will do it no matter what. Those of us who understand what happened down there know why need to begin to focus on future preparedness and prevention.

If you want my opinion, the responsibility is first at the state and local level. Yes, mistakes were made, huge mistakes! However, in watching the coverage, it seemed that massive operations got underway rather quickly to rescue those in immediate danger from wind and flood. I do heavily fault FEMA for blocking the Red Cross and private donations just to feel they had assumed total control. That fault lies solely on the man in charge and that is President Bush. However, he seems to have rapidly dealt with the problem by firing the boob they put in charge and no doubt replacing him with an even bigger boob.

This one aspect cannot take the charge of public saftey from the state and local officials. When something happens in this state, its state officials who deal with it. Why, because we're better adapt to the territory and procedures of local responders and are less likely to screw things up. When state officials screw things up, its those officials who are held accountable. In my opinion, they all failed to grasp the magnatude of what was looming and probably did have provisions in place which were also wiped out. Talk about embarrassing, we have supplies in place for a hurricane but we kinda put em' in the path of the hurricane thereby losing them.

The comment about Mississippi and Florida was well put. How is it L.A./N.O. is the only problem here? I think its because you had two incompetent people in charge.

Lastly, even though mistakes were made, considering the vast area affected and tendency for residents to get themselves into trouble by underestimating this storm, I'd say the troops did a good job once they were requested and sent in. Remember, these are guys who had to leave their homes and come down to this mess and some had likely not been back from Iraq very long before having to go again.