Amateur Megalomania

Lots of interesting information coming to the surface in the aftermath of Katrina.

First off, the ‘slow’ response of FEMA to the hurricane. While the response seems shocking to a lot of people, and perhaps it could be better, there are some interesting policy positions that were well known to a great many people well before Katrina escalated in the Gulf. The Washington Post reveals the following little tidbit.

Other federal and state officials pointed to Louisiana’s failure to measure up to national disaster response standards, noting that the federal plan advises state and local emergency managers not to expect federal aid for 72 to 96 hours, and base their own preparedness efforts on the need to be self-sufficient for at least that period. “Fundamentally the first breakdown occurred at the local level,” said one state official who works with FEMA. “Did the city have the situational awareness of what was going on within its borders? The answer was no.”

72 to 96 hours puts the response time at the exact day when the National Guard and FEMA began to roll in and get things going. New Orleans knew what was required, and while the scope of the disaster was larger than expected, why didn’t New Orleans plan for the worst case? It isn’t like they didn’t have a dry run a year ago.

Dateline – September 19, 2004 when Hurricane Ivan, a category 4 storm moved into the Gulf and threatened New Orleans.

Those who had the money to flee Hurricane Ivan ran into hours-long traffic jams. Those too poor to leave the city had to find their own shelter – a policy that was eventually reversed, but only a few hours before the deadly storm struck land.

New Orleans dodged the knockout punch many feared from the hurricane, but the storm exposed what some say are significant flaws in the Big Easy’s civil disaster plans.

…

In this case, city officials first said they would provide no shelter, then agreed that the state-owned Louisiana Superdome would open to those with special medical needs. Only Wednesday afternoon, with Ivan just hours away, did the city open the 20-story-high domed stadium to the public.

Mayor Ray Nagin’s spokeswoman, Tanzie Jones, insisted that there was no reluctance at City Hall to open the Superdome, but said the evacuation was the top priority.

“Our main focus is to get the people out of the city,” she said.

Callers to talk radio complained about the late decision to open up the dome, but the mayor said he would do nothing different.

“We did the compassionate thing by opening the shelter,” Nagin said. “We wanted to make sure we didn’t have a repeat performance of what happened before. We didn’t want to see people cooped up in the Superdome for days.”

When another dangerous hurricane, Georges, appeared headed for the city in 1998, the Superdome was opened as a shelter and an estimated 14,000 people poured in. But there were problems, including theft and vandalism.

…

It was so bad that some broadcasters were telling people to stay home, that they had missed their window of opportunity to leave. They claimed the interstates had turned into parking lots where trapped people could die in a storm surge.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Nagin both acknowledged the need to improve traffic flow and said state police should consider reversing highway lanes earlier. They also promised meetings with governments in neighboring localities and state transportation officials to improve evacuation plans.

But Blanco and other state officials stressed that, while irritating, the clogged escape routes got people out of the most vulnerable areas.

So Katrina spins into the Gulf, and no one calls an evacuation until less than 24 hours before impact? I wonder who urged the Governor to make the call?

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.

Now, some people have been excoriating Bush about budget cuts to the New Orleans levy system. Let’s look into that with Michelle Malkin (scroll down a bit from this link). There’s lots here, but a few interesting tidbits.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday that a lack of funding for hurricane-protection projects around New Orleans did not contribute to the disastrous flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina.

In a telephone interview with reporters, corps officials said that although portions of the flood-protection levees remain incomplete, the levees near Lake Pontchartrain that gave way–inundating much of the city–were completed and in good condition before the hurricane.

However, they noted that the levees were designed for a Category 3 hurricane and couldn’t handle the ferocious winds and raging waters from Hurricane Katrina, which was a Category 4 storm when it hit the coastline. The decision to build levees for a Category 3 hurricane was made decades ago based on a cost-benefit analysis.

Or, if I may inject just a little partisanship for the sake of historical perspective…

A hurricane project, approved and financed since 1965, to protect more than 140,000 West Bank residents east of the Harvey Canal is in jeopardy.

The Clinton administration is holding back a Corps of Engineers report recommending that the $120 million project proceed. Unless that report is forwarded to the Office of Management and Budget, Congress cannot authorize money for the project, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson’s office said Thursday.

Now I’m not blaming Clinton for anything…simply illustrating that these types of things are the normal give and take of Federal Budgeting. And while we are on the topic, can I ask why New Orleans flood control is a Federal issue? New Orleans is in charge of their own levees and pumps. Shouldn’t they be responsible for their upkeep and upgrade? Why should the people of Alaska be paying for New Orleans flood control? But that’s a whole different post about the expansion of Federal expectations at the expense of local responsibility.

Perhaps Bush was listening to that bastion of Leftist thought, the New York Times. From the 9/1/05 issue of the Times…

While our attention must now be on the Gulf Coast’s most immediate needs, the nation will soon ask why New Orleans’s levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane’s surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area’s flood protection?

One would think the Times would be able to dust off an older issue and check their position in the recent past. From the April, 2005 editorial…

Anyone who cares about responsible budgeting and the health of America’s rivers and wetlands should pay attention to a bill now before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The bill would shovel $17 billion at the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and other water-related projects — this at a time when President Bush is asking for major cuts in Medicaid and other important domestic programs. Among these projects is a $2.7 billion boondoggle on the Mississippi River that has twice flunked inspection by the National Academy of Sciences… [snip]

This is a bad piece of legislation.

So which is it?

Filed under: Katrina