Sandy is Obama’s Katrina — but the media look away

Yes!! The media is looking away and so is ATS when you compare the aftermath of both storms...

Time to play the game that Obama thinks has worked so well for himself. The blame Bush Game or the Bush Comparison Game... Imagine if??

A former top official from the George W. Bush White House and I play a game via email. The slug of each message is always — “Imagine If Bush Had ” followed by some egregious act by President Obama.

The latest email was, of course, about Hurricane Sandy. Imagine if former President Bush had popped into a hurricane-ravaged region, walked around with a few federal officials for an hour, hugged distraught and sobbing women, then headed off to Las Vegas, bounding off Air Force One with a huge smile, waving to adoring fans?

Imagine if the bashed and thrashed 43rd president had popped over to FEMA for a 30-minute photo op, then jetted off for yet another campaign rally with Hollywood celebs?

History in context

Before we go on, let’s set the record straight about Hurricane Katrina. On Aug. 29, 2005, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin issued a mandatory evacuation order for the city — hours after the storm had become a Category 5 and just 19 hours before it made landfall. More than 60,000 residents ignored the order — or couldn’t get out in time. The mayor then failed to deploy thousands of buses that could have ferried out 12,000 people per fleet run. He didn’t even move the buses themselves to higher ground — a day later, they were window-high in water, useless.

For at least three days, both the mayor and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco repeatedly told the White House they had the situation under control — until they suddenly turned and blamed the federal government for everything.

City and state officials had an emergency plan but failed to implement it. In fact, 13 months before the hurricane, local, state and federal officials had conducted an elaborate drill with the assumption that 300,000 had failed to evacuate for just such a catastrophic storm. But after Katrina struck, instead of evacuating the people who wouldn’t or couldn’t get out, officials sent them to the damaged Superdome, where there was little food and water. More than 30,000 descended on the stadium. City officials thought the state was handling supplies; state officials thought the city was in control. Chaos ensued.

Fast Forward to Sandy

“This continues to be my number one priority,” the president said at his FEMA photo-op Saturday before skipping back off to the campaign trail. Lest any reporter think the federal response was ever not Mr. Obama’s No. 1 priority, a campaign flack aboard Air Force One said, “He’s focused on it every minute he’s not on the stage.”

Play the game one more time: “Imagine if Bush had said that?”

Mr. Obama and his top aides flustered and blustered and bloviated over their superior pre-storm planning. The president vowed that nothing — nothing — would stop him from saving New York and New Jersey from the vicious storm. He pledged to be on the case around the clock, come hell or high water. And then he blew out of town, headed to Vegas.

The storm hit one week ago. What is the status of the states hardest hit? Dire. There are still 2.5 million without power, and temperatures have dipped into the 20s (another powerful storm is blowing up the coast and expected to hit the region by midweek). Bodies are still being recovered in Staten Island. Chaos reigns in the streets of the outer boroughs. Residents have taken up arms — baseball bats, machetes, shotguns — as crime and looting soar. Handmade signs popped up: “Looters Will Be Shot” and “Block Protected By Smith & Wesson.”

Why Dry Ice 6 days after the storm.... way to late to save anything from the fridge and freezer....

Six days after the storm, officials distributed dry ice (uh, a refrigerator’s contents spoils in about six hours without power). FEMA ran out of potable water to hand out to the trapped and powerless Saturday — the agency hadn’t ordered more until late Friday, so new shipments aren’t expected until Monday at the earliest.

By Sunday, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg felt safe enough to hit the streets. “When are we gonna get some f–ing help?” one woman asked bluntly. And more federal officials were on their way: Department of Homeland Security Chief Janet A. Napolitano strolled the hardest-hit areas, again with egoist Chris Christie.

Nowhere, so far at least, are the obvious questions: Why didn’t FEMA set up gas reserves well in advance? The storm was on the radar screen for more than a week, and a direct hit was never in doubt. How about food, water, even generators? All could have been positioned nearby and moved in quickly after Sandy hit. And a week later, the stranded are still asking: Why is it taking so long?

Generators and supplies for the NY Marathon are STILL sitting unused in Central Park. Generators with enough capacity to power 400 homes at least..

Where is the action and where is the flaming for the Obama Administration's handling of this disaster? The calls for federal assistance are out there. FEMA failed to order extra supplies during the warning stages of this storm... we knew it was coming for about a week.... Obama offers a quick handshake with Christie and then jets off to Vegas.... What has happened since then... Lower Manhattan has power and that's about it....

www.washingtontimes.com...

Yeah but didn't Bush cause Katrina with HARRPto help renovate New Orleans?

Wiping out some of the "bad" neighborhoods thus allowing for more modern construction with higher priced neighborhoods with companies he invested in?

reply to post by abeverage


So, Sandy was caused by HAARP in order to redevelop key real estate? That's a new one to me... This was a storm that was well over due for this area... Case in point ..storms of 1954

The 1954 hurricane season was a bit unusual in the sense that Florida and the other Gulf states were spared impacts from tropical systems while New England and the Mid-Atlantic States were affected by several destructive hurricanes (Carol, Edna and Hazel). Considering that 5-10 hurricanes are predicted to strike New England each century, having 3 storms make landfall in one year is extraordinary.

www.hurricanescience.org...

The enemy of the Global Warming Bunch
video.foxbusiness.com...

reply to post by jibeho


Obama actually responded to Sandy, unlike Bush with Katrina.

I don't remember people being stranded and cramed into a dome during Sandy.

reply to post by jibeho


Really?

So your trying to compare a strike the on the largest population center of the nation that is going fairly well to a near complete disaster that hit a much much smaller population center? Honestly with number of people involved it is a miracle things have gone so well. If the effort at the Fedral, state and local level had been near this level in Katrina things would have gone much better. However, you live and you learn.

Originally posted by Taiyed
reply to post by jibeho

 

Obama actually responded to Sandy, unlike Bush with Katrina.

I don't remember people being stranded and cramed into a dome during Sandy.

That was Nagan's baby!! Not Bush!! Nice try. It was also Nagan who refused to use his bus fleet to move people and he even neglected to move the fleet to higher ground so that it could be used later. All buses were swamped..

Was the federal response perfect? No but the local and state authorities are at fault for most of what transpired in Louisiana...

Remember this? Most people don't... Other areas were hit just as hard as N.O. and Louisiana in general and they fared much better.... due to proper planning and execution

Most local governments reacted well before and after the storm. On the other hand, Louisiana‘s Governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin refused to react with any alacrity. Mayor Nagin refused to evacuate people. The most poignant image from Hurricane Katrina was the rows of submerged busses which should have been used to evacuate residents. When the president met with the mayor, governor, and other elected officials, they acted hysterical and irrational. The governor appeared vacant. The president approached her to expand the federal role by federalizing the national guard to simplify relief efforts. When confronted by President Bush and Mayor Nagin on September 2, Governor Blanco refused the help, disavowed her responsibility, and passed it on to the mayor. She even blocked the Red Cross from entering New Orleans. Additionally, her administration was slow to remove bodies leaving them for animals to feed on. The governor's incompetence was glaring when compared to Alabama's Bob Riley and Mississippi's Haley Barbour who both expertly managed the crisis.

Blame local politics for what happened in N.O.

Nationalizing the guard may have made relief efforts easier and help people sooner. Blanco demurred because federal troops could not enforce Louisiana law. Until Blanco requested help, Bush could do nothing without declaring Louisiana in a state of insurrection. The president questioned the constitutionality of such a declaration. While some argue voters may have forgiven him for declaring an insurrection, administration critics would have howled in protest even as the federal government moved to save lives. The president later wrote that declaring insurrection would "unleash holy hell." Additionally, it is unclear what sort of precedent Bush would have set declaring Louisiana in a state of rebellion.

Critics attacked Bush for the slow federal response. They claim he should have known that the storm would be catastrophic and should have moved quicker. There were also charges of cronyism and ineptitude in the response. Bush admits the response could have been better and took responsibility at the time. There is no arguing that the federal response should have been better. The storm helped decimate Bush’s second term by eradicating the image of the 911 President and replacing it with an image of flooded parishes.

Hurricane Katrina decimated the Gulf Coast and destroyed New Orleans. The slow federal response damaged the Bush Administration. However, the president’s hands were tied by Louisiana. Additionally, more responsible elected officials and bureaucrats would have ensured the levee system‘s viability. They would have also moved quicker to evacuate people. Essentially, had Louisiana’s elected officials behaved in a more responsible way, many more people would be alive today. The federal response was not good, but decades of corruption combined with the state and local response significantly worsened the disaster.

www.examiner.com...

Billions upon billions have been spent since and there are still areas and homes that were never repaired or rebuilt... last I checked the bill was $130 Billion and counting!!!!

Obama can't win man.

linky

Bush's FEMA Director Criticized Obama's Response to Sandy for Being Too Speedy

He responds too quickly he gets criticized. He responds to slowly he gets criticized.

He breathes too deeply he gets criticized.
I'm surprised they aren't staking out the presidential toilet to see if he isn't taking too long in there.
FOX would be all over that like.... well you know.

Originally posted by Taiyed
reply to post by jibeho

 

Obama actually responded to Sandy, unlike Bush with Katrina.

I don't remember people being stranded and cramed into a dome during Sandy.

I remember choppers and people in boats getting in there sure enough after Katrina. And in NY it looks like they still have a great many people to house. They may end up in a sports arena yet or tent city. And you gota be a fool to think they will give that the sort of coverage they gave Bush.

Not to mention NY is not in a low punch bowl area.

And they have the stones to flap about people politicizing! Every dead body they found after Katrina was Bushs fault. No, they will give Obama the best coverage they can here. Open you eyes.

reply to post by MrSpad


I'm not comparing Storm to Storm just media reaction to the two presidents sitting at the helm of each storm. It's all in the OP.

Just look at what has been posted so far regarding Bush and Katrina. People still blame him for what happened in New Orleans exclusively while utterly ignoring the actions and inactions of Nagan and Governor Bianco. They also ignore how other states and localities managed to successfully prepare and react to Katrina...

We should have learned from the mistakes made during Katrina and yet.... Look at Sandy a week later...

People blamed Bush for FEMA's errors during Katrina... FEMA failed to prepare in advance of Sandy. There was plenty of warning and yet they ran out of water early in the game and ordered after the strike. What? No blame for Obama?? Obama jets off to hob nob and campaign with celebrities after a courtesy stop and its ok? Why is that? Where was the planning??

Explain this...

FEMA's vaunted "lean forward" strategy that called for advanced staging of supplies for emergency distribution failed to live up to its billing in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

In fact, the agency appears to have been completely unprepared to distribute bottled water to Hurricane Sandy victims when the storm hit this Monday. In contrast to its stated policy, FEMA failed to have any meaningful supplies of bottled water -- or any other supplies, for that matter -- stored in nearby facilities as it had proclaimed it would on its website. This was the case despite several days advance warning of the impending storm.

FEMA only began to solicit bids for vendors to provide bottled water for distribution to Hurricane Sandy victims on Friday, sending out a solicitation request for 2.3 million gallons of bottled water at the FedBizOpps.gov website. Bidding closed at 4:30 pm eastern

Breitbart News spoke with contracting officer Annette Wright, who said that the winning vendor would be required to deliver the 2.3 million gallons of bottled water to an East Farmingdale, New York distribution center that was listed in the solicitation request by Monday, November 5th. Ms. Wright was unable to say when or how the water would be delivered from the distribution center to needy Hurricane Sandy victims in New Jersey, Staten Island, Long Island, and other boroughs of New York City. Vendors "are currently being evaluated," she said, and when the vendors are announced, they will provide information on how local distribution will occur.

www.breitbart.com... onday

Predictable pandering by the right to try to offset Bush's failures by trying to blame Obama for the same thing.

It is a formula they follow. Notice, any situation that resembles what Bush failed during his presidency, there is an immediate campaign to accuse Obama of the same thing.

Pretty unoriginal if you ask me.

What is even sadder that why people are still struggling, there are people here, making threads like these, for their own political purposes.

Lets let the water recede first before using people's trauma for mud slinging.

reply to post by nixie_nox


A prime example of the double standard indicated in the OP. Thank you for sharing!! Bush could not do anything right regarding Katrina and yet we have a clear failure of FEMA to properly prepare and stage supplies for the aftermath of Sandy. There was plenty of warning and yet no supplies were advanced to the locations where they should have been... Still sitting in Georgia when the storm struck....

What now??? Does the FEMA director report to Obama??

reply to post by nixie_nox


Oh you must be kidding? Bush was even said to have had the dike bown himself by some sort of hit team. Worse people soped that up like the stone truth or something!

I agree Jib - I think the media is only showing what the administration wants them to. One thing unmentioned on the news is What happened to NYC's homeless population? There's a thread on that here - www.abovetopsecret.com...

FEMA has once again failed miserably. Despite all the claims that it's up to state and local governments to deliver aid it has to be somewhere that they can get it. Preferably not In Georgia or Maryland. Despite all the hype of the "lean forward" storm response strategy it seems FEMA was actually "sitting on it's hands" instead. Even with several days forewarning of Sandy hitting the Northeast FEMA relief supplies were still sitting in warehouses a full day after the storm hit.

www.breitbart.com... utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

But contrary to Fugate's claims, there simply was no "water that was initially staged" by FEMA. When the storm hit, all the FEMA bottled water was in its Georgia or Maryland warehouses. The request for proposal sent out hurriedly on Friday, November 2 for an additional 2.3 million gallons of bottled water, for delivery to Long Island on Monday, November 5, was not a pre-negotiated, pre-bid contract "turned on" that day according to a FEMA master plan. Instead, it was an example of FEMA scrambling after the fact to meet the needs of victims that it should have planned for weeks earlier.

Not only that but as of last friday of 51 industrial sized generators allocated for Connecticut only 1 was operating.

Care to bet the actual body count is in the thousands?. Actual damages are closer to a $150 Billion? That people are going to freeze to death in unheated homes after the next hits?

When 3 and 4 days after the storm nobody from FEMA, the Red Cross or anyone else is to be found in many neighborhoods you know the response is a failure. There's no reason some help couldn't have gotten to these people by that amount of time - even out on the barrier islands.

Lean Forward my you-know-what.
More like Lean Over and take it in the you-know-where.
I wonder how starving, cold and homeless voters will be voting come tomorrow?

You would do well to read the Katrina timeline, particularly this statement by GWB a week and a half after landfall:

“Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government,” Mr. Bush said. “And to the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility.”

You want to complain about photo ops and jaunting off to Las Vegas for campaign speeches?

Bush was having photo ops and giving speeches on Iraq the whole time. Obama was on the ground for three whole days (at the incredibly important end of the election season), directly calling all the governors of each state throughout the night and day.

If Sandy is Obama's Katrina, he's doing a stellar job.

reply to post by jibeho


Funny how a GOP Headliner like Chris Christie cant say enough good things about the POTUS.
Or is he a "self-hater now?

Something tells me Kanye West isn't going to go on air and say "Barrack Obama doesn't care about white people."

Originally posted by nixie_nox
Predictable pandering by the right to try to offset Bush's failures by trying to blame Obama for the same thing.

No, it's called holding your guy to the same standards you all set for Bush. You don;t like it of course, because liberals never have standards for themselves, just everyone else.

Originally posted by jibeho
reply to post by nixie_nox

 

A prime example of the double standard indicated in the OP. Thank you for sharing!! Bush could not do anything right regarding Katrina and yet we have a clear failure of FEMA to properly prepare and stage supplies for the aftermath of Sandy. There was plenty of warning and yet no supplies were advanced to the locations where they should have been... Still sitting in Georgia when the storm struck....

What now??? Does the FEMA director report to Obama??

The thing Bush did wrong with Katrina was NOT SHOWING UP after it happened.


Obama has already outdone him in this regard - if you keep grasping like this, there won't be any straws for the rest of us

Also: If Bush was such a swell guy and such a great president, why hasn't the GOP had him out campaigning for them?

They don't want him anywhere near the 2012 election, his presidency was a complete disaster, and people might remember what it was like having a republican president.



You know all those billboards with Bush saying "Do you miss me yet?" The answer is No. There's a reason he rarely leaves his home anymore.