I'm Betting This Won't Be Covered in The Senate Investigation

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/nation/12678237.htm

Posted on Sun, Sep. 18, 2005




Military waited 3 days for orders

SLUGGISH DEPLOYMENT OF TROOPS TO HELP AFTER KATRINA SHOWS FEDERAL CONFUSION OVER ITS OWN PLAN, CRITICS SAY

By Drew Brown, Seth Borenstein and Alison Young

Knight Ridder


WASHINGTON - Two days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, President Bush went on national television to announce a massive federal rescue and relief effort. But orders to move didn't reach key active military units until three days later.

Once they received them, it took just eight hours for 3,600 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., to be on the ground in Louisiana and Mississippi with vital search-and-rescue helicopters. An additional 2,500 soon followed from the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas.

``If the 1st Cav. and 82nd Airborne had gotten there on time, I think we would have saved some lives,'' said Gen. Julius Becton Jr., who was the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Reagan from 1985 to 1989. ``We recognized we had to get people out, and they had helicopters to do that.''

Massive resources

Federal officials have long known that the active-duty military is the only organization with the massive resources and effective command structure to handle a major catastrophe.

In a 1996 Pentagon report, the Department of Defense acknowledged its large role in major disasters. Between 1992 and 1996, the Pentagon provided support in 18 disasters and developed five training manuals on how to work with FEMA and civilians in natural disasters.

``In catastrophic disasters, DOD will likely provide Hurricane Andrew levels of support and predominantly operate in urban or suburban terrain,'' the report said. ``This should be incorporated into planning assumptions.''

The delay this time in tapping the troops, helicopters, trucks, generators, communications and other resources of the 1st Cavalry and the 82nd Airborne is the latest example of how the federal response to Katrina lacked organization and leadership. And it raises further questions about the government's ability to rapidly mobilize the active-duty military now that FEMA has been absorbed into the massive, terrorism-focused Department of Homeland Security.

Addressing the nation Thursday night in a speech from New Orleans, Bush said the storm overwhelmed the disaster relief system. ``It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces, the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice,'' he said.

Several emergency response experts, however, questioned whether Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff understood how much authority they had to tap all the resources of the federal government -- including those of the Department of Defense.

``To say I've suddenly discovered the military needs to be involved is like saying wheels should be round instead of square,'' said Michael Greenberger, a law professor and the director of the University of Maryland's Center for Health and Homeland Security.

Hurricane's example

During the last great hurricane -- Andrew in 1992 -- the failure to get food, water and shelter to Florida and to victims highlighted the importance of quickly engaging the Department of Defense.

``For such disasters, DOD is the only organization capable of providing, transporting and distributing sufficient quantities of items needed,'' the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, wrote in a 1993 report. It noted that the military has storehouses of food and temporary shelters, contingency planning skills, command capability -- as well as the helicopters and other transportation needed to get them to a disaster scene fast.. Indeed, the new National Response Plan, the nation's blueprint for responding to disasters which was unveiled with much fanfare in January by Chertoff's predecessor, Tom Ridge, includes a section on responding to catastrophic events.

``Unless it can be credibly established that a mobilizing federal resource . . . is not needed at the catastrophic incident venue, that resource deploys,'' the plan says. The plan and a 2003 presidential directive put Chertoff, as homeland security secretary, in charge of coordinating the federal response.

Chertoff, who aides said has been engaged in the response to Hurricane Katrina, went to Atlanta the day after the storm hit for a previously scheduled briefing on avian flu. Aides also concede that Washington officials were unable to confirm that the levees in New Orleans had failed until midday Aug. 30. The breaches were first discovered in Louisiana some 32 hours earlier.

Greenberger, the Maryland homeland security expert, said he wonders whether Chertoff and other top federal officials understand the National Response Plan or had even read it before Katrina. ``Everything he did and everything he has said strongly suggests that that plan was never read,'' Greenberger said of Chertoff.


Chertoff was in Gulfport, Miss., on Friday to participate in the Harrison County National Day of Prayer and Remembrance. He took no questions from reporters. Homeland Security officials didn't return calls for comment.

Examine role

Also Friday, Bush said he thinks Congress should examine what role the military can and should play in natural disasters.

Former FEMA Director James Lee Witt, who served under President Clinton, believes that the Bush administration is mistaken if it thinks there are impediments to using the military for non-policing help in a disaster.

``When we were there and FEMA was intact, the military was a resource to us,'' said Witt. ``We pulled them in very quickly. I don't know what rule he talked about. . . . We used military assets a lot.''

AND in other news, if the Governor of LA, along with the Mayor would have used their OWN evacuation plan, instead of having their collective heads inserted in their anal regions, More lives would have been saved, people sheltered and fed.

Click to expand...

So, you're defense of the admin's complete failure to implement it's own long standing plan which (as stated) is:

Indeed, the new National Response Plan, the nation's blueprint for responding to disasters which was unveiled with much fanfare in January by Chertoff's predecessor, Tom Ridge, includes a section on responding to catastrophic events.

``Unless it can be credibly established that a mobilizing federal resource . . . is not needed at the catastrophic incident venue, that resource deploys,'' the plan says. The plan and a 2003 presidential directive put Chertoff, as homeland security secretary, in charge of coordinating the federal response.

Click to expand...

Is to say that because the mayor of NO is incompetent, that absolves the Bush admin from the obligation of following their own plan for disaster relief?

It is not the Federal Governments job, by law, to be a first responder. That falls the the state level.

Click to expand...

You really summarized it.... and by law, it is not my job to use my garden hose to put out a guy who is laying on the sidewalk on fire (it's the fire departments).

The genuinely idiotic thing about continually hearing this response as an excuse for the Bush admin's failure is that in their own plan, they acknowledge that the only organization which can possibly handle such a disaster is the military..... and the next thing you write is that the fault is the incompetent mayor.

`For such disasters, DOD is the only organization capable of providing, transporting and distributing sufficient quantities of items needed,'' the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, wrote in a 1993 report. It noted that the military has storehouses of food and temporary shelters, contingency planning skills, command capability -- as well as the helicopters and other transportation needed to get them to a disaster scene fast..

Click to expand...

Did you notice the part about how even the FED says that the military is the only POSSIBLE way to deal with it effectively? Notice how that was an integral part of their response plan?

Shall I post it again?

``Unless it can be credibly established that a mobilizing federal resource . . . is not needed at the catastrophic incident venue, that resource deploys,'' the plan says.

Click to expand...

Notice it says: THAT RESOURCE DEPLOYS.

That's the plan, I didn't write it.

The problem is the FED did not follow their own plan in a timely fashion and a lot of people died who didn't need to.

I guess at this point it is back to mayor bashing........

3 days is sluggish?
Didn't it take them longer to get into Florida after the last hurricane?

Click to expand...

If you mean the killer Andrew in southern Florida, yes that was about right and it was that disaster and slow response that prompted the FED to acknowledge the need for a bettr plan to get aid in faster. It was also interesting as a historical footnote that a prsident named Bush was in the white house at that time desperate for something to use to get his tanked ratings up and he also ignored a genuinely priceless opportunity to charge in like John Wayne and look like a hero. If GWB had been face front on the tube day after the hurricane passed and sent in some choppers and MRE's the next day, his numbers would be flying now. It's all in the timing.

3 days is sluggish? I deal with the Federal govt daily and consider 3 days to be a pretty snappy response. The problem is, once the head guy makes the decision, that "decision" still has to filter through a beauracracy. Proper forms must be filled out, processes started, etc.

Click to expand...

NO, actually, that is not true in this case because as stated above, the official federal response plan is to send in military aid and support unless proven NOT to be needed so it should not have needed a bunch of approvals: it was simply following SOP.

Even if there was a three day chain of signatures, they still had plenty of time thanks to the fact that it tore across Florida about four days before it hit La. Bush declared a state of emergency about four days before Katrina hit landfall. He could have (and should have) had the troops and supplies staged and ready to pounce and the hospital ship USS Comfort could have been about 12 hours out of NO if it had been dispatched the day that a state of emergency was declared.

Bottom line, the FED official plan is clearly stated as:

1) We KNOW the only agency capable of handling a major disaster is the military (DUH, as you referred to Andrew taught us that).

2) SOP is to deploy said resource in emergency unless and until it is proven not to be needed.

That ain't rocket science. If they had started it rolling the day that an emergency was declared, it would have been there when needed.

'The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating'... "


Intersting reading. NOW back to our program, "Bush, The Hurricane Maker""

Click to expand...

I won't be able to continue this discourse because I don't wish to violate my own rules of conduct about arguing with the hopeless.

I will simply point out you have ignored every single thing above which addresses the thread topic (that the federal government did not follow it's own clear plan for a disaster) and you have tap danced and side stepped every issue.

The simple fact is this is not about state's rights, it's not about Louisiana politics, it's not about the fact 100,000 dirt poor people don't trust the government and refused to evacuate, it's a thread about one thing:

The FED had a plan to deal with hurricane relief and it was implemented primarily because hurricanes like Andrew proved the militaery is the only resource which can move sufficient materiel quickly enough to minimize loss of life, hence the fundamental precept of the federal response:

We go in with aid until we see it ain't needed.

Amazing you can't grasp that simple concept.

The point is the mayor and the state may not have done well, gee.... what a surprise: a dirt poor state filled with corrupt incompetent politicians and they didn't do a great job.

Again, you flee like Jesse Owens from the simple fact: that does not absolve the federal government from doing their job, it does not erase the fact that they had a clearly detailed plan which called for them to take actions which they failed to follow, and unlike the mayor, prompt action on the part of the FED would have done a great deal of good and saved a lot of lives.

Did your mama ever tell you two wrongs don't make a right? Well, one bozo mayor doesn't wipe out the fact that the Bush admin ignored what was very clearly shaping up to be the disaster of the century as it steamed up the Gulf.

And by the way: Bush accepted responsibility, so he must think SOMETHING in the government didn't go right.

That in itself is a minor miracle.

"Our role is more of coordination, not dictation," said Clark. "We put together the people that have help to offer with those who need it."

Click to expand...

Oh, really? Like all of those invisible helicopters not picking up the dying patients from the tops of flooded hospitals or the invisible trucks with water and MRE's not rolling into the stadium and civic center.....

are those the "people" they put together to offer help to "those who need it"?

This is a joke. It's genuinely amazing anybody would defend such a total fiasco and claim they did their job. They didn't do a bad job, they did NOTHING until it was three days too late.

If the state lacks the resources, the federal government responds, but only at the request of the governor and on the recommendation of the region's FEMA director.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I guess people screaming "Help us we're dying!" on nationally televised news programs couldn't be expected to cause some kind of aid response from the Bush admin or FEMA.

Thanks for the intelligent response, Art: good points all.

What it's coming to sound like, though, is that Bush/Chertoff/Brown were sitting back, expecting Nagin and Blanco to have done THEIR jobs, not realizing how bad the situation had gotten.

Click to expand...

I basically agree, except I would point out one thing: sitting back and assuming their services would not be needed is expressly against what their charter is..... and given the fact that Katrina had already shredded Florida and was by then, a seriously dangerous and very well understood threat, a federal response was not only advisable, it was mandated by their own documented plan. PERIOD. The fact that New Orleans could not survive such a hurricane was a very widely known and well documented fact. Even if the mayor and Governor had a BEST CASE possible scenario and there were only a few thousand people left in the city..... bottom line is that they still would have needed help.

If I'm correct in this surmise, I think there was inadequate information flow back to the White House, and undue "poliitical courtesy".

Click to expand...

The sources I have seen for some time now have maintained Bush (who never eagerly entertained disagreements) has grown so "reactive" to bad news that it could simply have been a case where they shielded him from receiving the information. Other than that, it is incomprehensible that anybody with a working TV or radio could have NOT known about how dire the situation was.

That is, nobody really got through to Bush that, "Hey, they're seriously screwing up, down here!", and Bush forgot to take some Mean pills and "go for it", over-riding Blanco. All in all, it looks like nobody in DC had the TV turned on.

Click to expand...

Actually, he didn't need to over ride anybody to get some basic aid in there. As long as he did not send in troops to assume LE authority, he could have (on his own) sent in convoys of military trucks carrying aid as well as helicopter fleets for evacuation of the stranded. He could have also had the USS Comfort off shore so the critical patients could have been ferried there by the choppers.

The simple fact is the vast majority of those needing aid were at two known locations (superdome and civic center) and trucks WERE getting in and out of those locations. All they had to do was tell the MIL to go for it and start hauling it in. If they were all freaked out about the uniforms, they could have hired Greyhound buses to pick up the food and haul it in and the people out and get a convoy system going.

This ain't rocket science, there were solutions available, and it wouldn't have taken all that much to do it.

If Bush had sent in the military on his own without a request from the state, the same people complaining today would be asking for his head for his unlawful "invasion" of Louisiana.

Click to expand...

What a load of garbage. remember Andrew? The only complaining when the Military INVADED and set up hospitals and shelters was:

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?"

That is the lamest excuse I have ever heard. You have 100,000 people starving in shelters screaming for help and you think anybody is going to care if they asked the governor for permission to help?