Bus Gate Deadly Negligence
Less than a mile from the dome sat dozens of municipally-owned NORTA buses. . . .
Figure these buses have 60 or so seats on them. That adds up to an additional 9,000 or so passengers who could have ridden them out of New Orleans ahead of the storm and the flood in one trip. If Ebbert had followed the plan.
I take no pleasure in counting up buses, Googling seating capacities and tallying up the number of lives that might have been saved. But when the blame game started, Mayor Nagin and Terry Ebbert made it necessary to do so.
Well said.
Earlier thoughts on Bus Gate here and here.
How not to be Mayor — notice the oil slick coming from the school buses.
I appreciate the fact that W is not keeping score, but Mayor Nagin seems to be running up the score by blaming the President for not evacuating the Mayor’s citizens who would have counted their blessings to be on any one of the flooded buses above.
Tragedy indeed, but not the tragedy Americans are hearing from The New York Times, et al.
Just repeat after me, It’s All Bush’s Fault.
UPDATE:
Seems Governor Blanco is competing with Mayor Nagin for the Katrina Incompetence Negligence award.
Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state’s emergency operations center said Saturday.
The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. “Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,” said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.
Ann Althouse asks:
I can’t imagine letting even one person die to protect my political reputation. How many people died because of self-protective decisions like what this article suggests Blanco did?
UPDATE:
A Chrenkoff reader suggests Governor Blanco has been “much worse than useless.”
UPDATE II:
The Anchoress sat back in stunned awe then wept when she saw the buses.
And yeah, looking at this picture, I cried. After days of watching heartbreaking images of people in New Orleans stranded, victimized by violence, frightened, hungry, thirsty, ill…I looked at this picture and noted the simple arithmetic that calculated how many people might have been spared the trauma and indignity and vulnerable fear that too many have just experienced, and I could not help but cry.
People have been raped. People have been murdered. People have been terrorized. And they didn’t have to be. They didn’t even have to be in that city, at that time! With planning, they could have been moved out.
How could anyone not weep?
UPDATE III:
Ed Morrissey details how the local authorities did not follow their own plan.
UPDATE IV:
Has Ted Koppel interviewed Hizzoner yet (Tom Kirkendall likes Koppel’s Mike Brown interview, but I would like it better if Mayor Nagin either preceded or followed Brown’s dissection)?
Well, Wizbang! points to more indifference from Mayor Nagin as documented by PunditGuy.
At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses pulled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line – much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome since last Sunday.
“How does this work? They [are] clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?” exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.
The 700 had been trapped in the hotel, near the Superdome, but conditions were considerably cleaner, even without running water, than the unsanitary crush inside the dome. The Hyatt was severely damaged by the storm. Every pane of glass on the riverside wall was blown out.
Mayor Ray Nagin has used the hotel as a base since it sits across the street from city hall, and there were reports the hotel was cleared with priority to make room for police, firefighters and other officials.
UPDATE V:
Michelle Malkin asks why Mike Brown still has a job — and argues W should be asking Brown to look for a new job soon.
PowerLine’s John Hinderaker has a different take, albeit more politically tuned.
I’m parting company here with two people whose judgment I respect. Michelle Malkin has recommended that President Bush fire FEMA head Michael Brown. Brown is, apparently, a political appointee with few qualifications for the job beyond general competence and management skill. This is hardly unusual in Washington; the conventional assumption is that staff who report to the head of an agency furnish the necessary expertise. As seems to have happened; FEMA’s response to hurricanes last year was widely praised. In any event, whatever the wisdom of Brown’s appointment in hindsight, firing him now would be an admission that FEMA performed poorly in the current crisis–an assertion that is constantly repeated, but for which I have seen, at this point, little hard evidence. There will be time enough for sorting out, in a rational environment, the pros and cons of FEMA’s efforts; firing Brown now would accomplish nothing but to uselessly fan the flames of hysteria.
I fall in the Malkin camp on this one — not so much for the FEMA performance, but for Brown’s inability to get his facts straight and therefore allow the Legacy Media to ignore the hard work of many in FEMA (understanding it is too easy these days for the Legacy Media to ignore anything that complicates their story line that it is all Bush’s fault).
Are Americans wiser than all of the politicians and Legacy Media combined? PowerLine’s Paul Mirengoff looks at a poll which suggests Americans see the bigger picture.
Separately, Paul Mirengoff highlights David Frum’s latest and recommends Frum’s links which counter many of the more irresponsible charges of the Left.
Frum reasonably asks:
Good God, what is wrong with these people? Will they ever learn to see somebody else’s misfortune as something more than their political opportunity?
September 4th, 2005 at 9:25 PM
Dubya plays oblivious to Michael Brown’s failures
What a shame. President Dubya has continued with an act he already played when it came to praising the PLO: he praised Michael D. Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for helping in dealing with the aftermath of hurricane Katrina
September 5th, 2005 at 2:57 AM
Place the failure where it belongs!!! In the lap of Nagin and Blanco!!!!
Their failure to properly prepare for the evacuation and caring of people left in the city resulted in these conditions.
The Federal Gov’t has NO jurisdiction in City and State affairs until it is ASKED by the Gov or Mayor for help.
September 5th, 2005 at 9:13 AM
Who was going to drive all those buses, and where were they going to take all those people? Keep in mind that the highways out of NO were so jammed that it took 6-8 hours just to drive to Baton Rouge, which is 70 or so miles away. What happens if the buses get caught in the storm? Or what if they break down?
And this doesnt even get into where do you take all those people to. Baton Rouge was out of the question at the time. They were in the path of the storm and people there were doing their own evacuation and making their own plans. They didnt have the time and resources to prepare for 10,000-plus people coming in on buses.
So where then? You can only go west or northwest. What city on the map had the space and resources to house and feed 10,000+ people?
Think, people, before you start off on your partisan knee-jerk reactions
September 5th, 2005 at 9:53 AM
here is something else for you guys to soak in…
Why did the Bush Administration fail to act according to the National Response Plan they created in December of 2004 to deal with an incident like Katrina?
What do you do when the words on the paper don’t match the action in the field? People are dying today in New Orleans because of the failure to provide immediate aid are dead in part because of the negligence of Michael Chertoff. That is a harsh judgment, but if you will take time to read the National Response Plan that was signed into effect in December of 2004 there is no other reasonable conclusion.
The current effort by the Bush Administration to blame the victims in Louisiana and Mississippi is bad enough, but they are in big trouble once Americans take the time to understand that they the Administration ignored it’s own plan for dealing with a threat like Katrina. Why did they fail to implement the plan until it was too late to save lives along the Gulf Coast?
Don’t take my word for it, read the plan yourself. You can download it at http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/ asse…NRPbaseplan.pdf
The National Response Plan was accepted and implemented by Bush Administration in December 2004. According to the PREFACE, President Bush, “directed the development of a new National Response Plan (NRP) to align Federal coordination structures, capabilities, and resources into a unified, all discipline, and all-hazards approach to domestic incident management. . . .The end result is vastly improved coordination among Federal, State, local, and tribal organizations to help save lives and protect America’s communities by increasing the speed, effectiveness, and efficiency of incident management.”
Efforts by Chertoff and other Administration spinmeisters to pin the blame on the delayed response on State and local authorities does not hold water. Although the NRP recognizes that State and local authorities have a responsibility to ask for help, the NRP correctly provides a provision to take proactive steps to deal with a threat. On page 43 of the NRP the section is titled, “Proactive Federal Response to Catastrophic Events” (which I have copied and pasted below:
The NRP establishes policies, procedures, and mechanisms for proactive Federal response to catastrophic events. A catastrophic event is any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions. A catastrophic event could result in sustained national impacts over a prolonged period of time; almost immediately exceeds resources normally available to State, local, tribal, and private-sector authorities in the impacted area; and significantly interrupts governmental operations and emergency services to such an extent that national security could be threatened. All catastrophic events are Incidents of National Significance.
Implementation of Proactive Federal Response Protocols
Protocols for proactive Federal response are most likely to be implemented for catastrophic events involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive weapons of mass destruction, or large magnitude earthquakes or other natural or technological disasters in or near heavily populated areas.
Guiding Principles for Proactive Federal Response
Guiding principles for proactive Federal response include the following:
■ The primary mission is to save lives; protect critical infrastructure, property, and the environment; contain the event; and preserve national security.
■ Standard procedures regarding requests for assistance may be expedited or, under extreme circumstances, suspended in the immediate aftermath of an event of
catastrophic magnitude.
■ Identified Federal response resources will deploy and begin necessary operations as required to commence life-safety activities.
■ Notification and full coordination with States will occur, but the coordination process must not delay or impede the rapid deployment and use of critical resources. States are urged to notify and coordinate with local governments regarding a proactive Federal response.
■ State and local governments are encouraged to conduct collaborative planning with the Federal Government as a part of “steady-state” preparedness for catastrophic incidents.
Implementation Mechanisms for Proactive
Federal Response to Catastrophic Events
The NRP Catastrophic Incident Supplement (described in the Catastrophic Incident Annex) addresses resource and procedural implications of catastrophic events to ensure the rapid and efficient delivery of resources and assets, including special teams, equipment, and supplies that provide critical lifesaving support and incident containment capabilities. These assets may be so specialized or costly that they are either not available or are in insufficient quantities in most localities.
The procedures outlined in the NRP Catastrophic Incident Supplement are based on the following:
■ The pre-identification of Federal assets and capabilities;
■ The strategic location of pre-identified assets for rapid deployment; and
■ The use of pre-scripted mission assignments for Stafford Act declarations, or individual agency authority and funding, to expedite deployment upon notification by DHS (in accordance with procedures established in the NRP Catastrophic Incident Supplement) of a potential catastrophic event.
Agencies responsible for these assets will keep DHS apprised, through the HSOC, of their ongoing status and location until the JFO is established. Upon arrival at the scene, Federal assets will coordinate with the Unified Command, the SFLEO, and the JFO (or its forward elements) when established. Demobilization processes, including full coordination with the JFO Coordination Group, are initiated either when the mission is completed or when it is determined the magnitude of the event does not warrant continued use of the asset.
While the Bush Administration is to be commended for coming up with a plan for dealing with terrorism and large scale disasters, it must be condemned for its abject failure to implement the NRP. And, specific heads must role starting with Michael Chertoff and the head of FEMA.
September 5th, 2005 at 12:32 PM
Razzy, your puns are in poor taste, but we’ll let slide the “soak” comment for now.
The buses could have gone to where they have gone, Texas.
Nobody (in their right mind) is saying everyone could have been evacuated, but what we should talk about (because there will be earthquakes and terrorist attacks) is doing anything to improve our planning and execution. Catastrophes can never be made painless.
It is never an all or nothing choice.
Another perspective from someone who has done the math.
I will agree that we need to take a hard look at the Department of Homeland Security and its organization and ability to be nimble (or not as the case may be).
I also think it will be most instructive to look at how Mississippi and Louisiana handled their respective efforts. One can make the argument that Mississippi bore the brunt of the “right-front quadrant” and yet is not experiencing Louisiana’s agony of anarchy.
Actions have consequences, and only time will tell whether Barbour or Blanco was in control.
We can wink and nod at corrupt police departments and governments, but (to pound the horse into glue), actions have consequences.
September 5th, 2005 at 7:02 PM
Greg,
I dont recall anyone in the state of Texas saying that they would take in all of these people. Only after the hurricane hit did they say that.
Nagin has called things all along as he sees them. He praised that general that came in there and got things moving, and he praised the efforts being made by everyone today, saying that things were progressing. But all anyone wants to do is rip the man for venting his frustrations about all the press conferences and bureaucratic BS that were holding up the rescue efforts. And his venting happened to include (gasp!) a shot at Bush and the federal government.
As soon as Blanco sent her letter to Bush asking for federal help – two days before Katrina hit – thats when Homeland security (FEMA, basically) should have been spurred to action.
September 6th, 2005 at 1:57 AM
Razzy,
Was Texas asked, and did Texas say No?
We don’t elect Governors to sit in their offices and wait for calls from other Governors with offers of help.
We elect them to lead — in fact, wasn’t it Mayor Nagin who asked politicians to “get off their asses”?
If Governor Blanco has been so proactive, why is Mayor Nagin ripping Governor Blanco now?
September 8th, 2005 at 7:58 AM
It just appears to me that the blame can spread out amongst several people. One thing to remember hindsight is 20/20. This was an event that no one has ever faced before. You can write all kinds of plans and have all kinds of committees and things of that nature, but until you get into the reality of the situation and experience the situation mistakes will be made. I really feel for the people down there, I personally have family that has been affected by this event. We called my family many times and told them to get out and they refused for various reasons. I can’t blame anyone for their decisions. My point is I think everyone needs to share in the blame. We failed as a country.
September 8th, 2005 at 10:01 PM
J,
Should we outsource disaster relief as Profressor Bainbridge suggests?
I think it is an idea worth exploring.
September 10th, 2005 at 9:24 PM
Blanco and Nagin screwed up BIG TIME!!!!!
September 11th, 2005 at 4:22 PM
THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT HAPPEN IS COMING OUT AND BLANCO, YOU ARE A DISGRACE!!