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As far as the alternate ids go- I will put the question to our own resident rocket scientist- JRV. Am I one of the aliases that Jamie listed?



First I gotta check and make sure none of those are ME!

James - there are a couple of things to remember here. First, disaster planning and crisis management are things run by the states, not the federal government. FEMA supplies a lot of resources and pays for the logistics. It's the locals – mayor, governor, county whatever – that writes the plan and leads it (with strong FEMA participation)

In particular FEMA is responsible for reserve resources on a large scale - for example, FEMA ensures there are a million blankets available somewhere so that each state needn't duplicate each other's efforts. Contingency leases on airplanes would be another example. FEMA is the rich uncle the states can rely on when it gets expensive – FEMA doesn't lead except in unusual cases, and a hurricane isn't unusual.

The basic idea behind local control is that people on-the-spot have a better idea of the local conditions and circumstances than some bureaucratic automa in Washington. A desk jockey in Washington might not realize New Orleans sits well below sea level, for instance.

There are strong legal restrictions against sending in troops or Guard forces from out of state without the state's permission. In this case the governor of Louisiana has granted only limited permission - troops may deliver water and evacuate refugees but may not confront or deal with looters or snipers. That's the governor's choice. The governor could in fact order Honore and the feds out as long as she could keep order and peace.

Finally note that hurricanes aren't that unusual here. I've "ridden out" three when I lived on the coast. Florida has even more. The preparations needed are well known to those who live on the coast and not particularly difficult. New Orleans appears to have been hit by a fairly average hurricane - it's Mississippi and Alabama that got whacked really hard.

FEMA shares blame with the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans, but FEMA is no more responsible than they. New Orleans had the resources to evacuate on their own initiative until sometime Tuesday, and the Governor had the resources at every point but never used them, instead forcing FEMA to bring things in from out of state after it was too late.

I am personally beginning to settle on Tuesday morning as when FEMA started to go bad. Monday evening things were fine, better than expected (the Mayor said so on TV) and there were no flooding problems from the hurricane.

But Tuesday morning there was still an unrepaired levee breach, and it was a large one, and there was some flooding. At that point evacuation contingency plans should have started. There should have been a panic when it was announced the breaches couldn't be repaired, and frenzy when the mayor decided not to evacuate ahead of the inevitable flooding. And I mean at FEMA too, not just the governor's office.

Had Bush sent Honore in to take over from the locals Tuesday night instead of Thursday ~ 40 hours might have been saved. That's 20-20 hindsight but if you're going to pick a time and say the President might have reasonably acted to replace the existing crisis management team I think you say that the mayor's decision not to evacuate in spite of inevitable flooding is it.

We'll have to see the actual timetable after the investigation to see exactly when the mayor first told FEMA the levee might not be fixed, and what Bush was told by FEMA, and when. Bush obviously knew Thursday, or at least realized what he was being told was garbage, but how much earlier is unclear.
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"If they can't picture me with a knife, forcing them to strip in an alley, I don't want any part of it. It's humiliating." - windsock