Blame Game

NYT reported As the Bush administration tried to show a more forceful effort to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, government officials on Sunday escalated their criticism and sniping over who was to blame for the problems plaguing the initial response.

There were two problems, Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin, both of which wanted the Federal government to do everything, but control nothing.

While rescuers were still trying to reach people stranded by the floods, perhaps the only consensus among local, state and federal officials was that the system had failed. Some federal officials said uncertainty over who was in charge had contributed to delays in providing aid and imposing order, and officials in Louisiana complained that Washington disaster officials had blocked some aid efforts.

Local and state resources were so weakened, said Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, that in the future federal authorities need to take "more of an upfront role earlier on, when we have these truly ultracatastrophes."

I disagree. A state should be able to take care of itself, at least for the first few days, and if it needs to call on the Federal Government for help, it should be prepared to let the Federal Government control at least the assets it provides.

But furious state and local officials insisted that the real problem was that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which Mr. Chertoff's department oversees, failed to deliver urgently needed help and, through incomprehensible red tape, even thwarted others' efforts to help. "We wanted soldiers, helicopters, food and water," said Denise Bottcher, press secretary for Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana. "They wanted to negotiate an organizational chart."

If no one knows who is in charge, how do you expect things to be done.

Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans expressed similar frustrations. "We're still fighting over authority," he told reporters on Saturday. "A bunch of people are the boss. The state and federal government are doing a two-step dance."

That is because the Governor was not willing to agree to an organization chart. If she wanted to run things completely by herself, she had, or should have had, access to 600 buses, and she could have sent them out loaded with refugees, and then pick up supplies from the Federal staging areas on their way back to pick up another load of refugees.

.... When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away, he said. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA, Mr. Broussard said.

Can you prove any of those things?

One sign of the continuing battle over who was in charge was Governor Blanco's refusal to sign an agreement proposed by the White House to share control of National Guard forces with the federal authorities.

Does she expect the Feds to bring troops in and not at least have some sort of control over them?

Under the White House plan, Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré would oversee both the National Guard and the active duty federal troops, reporting jointly to the president and Ms. Blanco. "She would lose control when she had been in control from the very beginning," said Ms. Bottcher, the governor's press secretary.

And she has done a TERRIBLE job

Ms. Bottcher was one of several officials yesterday who said she believed FEMA had interfered with the delivery of aid, including offers from the mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, and the governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson.

If she did not want FEMA's help, she did not have to ask for it. The City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan here and the Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Evacuation & Sheltering Plan here and here seem to say that the city and state should be able to do most of the work, at least the first few days, and if they need the Federal Government to take over, they can ask for it then.

.... In a clear slap at Mr. Chertoff and the FEMA director, Michael D. Brown, Governor Blanco announced Saturday that she had hired James Lee Witt, the director of FEMA during the Clinton administration, to advise her on the recovery.

This is not the first time Witt has been involved. See this. But if she thinks whe and Witt can take care of things, I guess FEMA should withdraw all of its people, supplies, and assets.

Nearly every emergency worker told agonizing stories of communications failures, some of them most likely fatal to victims. Police officers called Senator Landrieu's Washington office because they could not reach commanders on the ground in New Orleans, Mr. Sharp said. Dr. Ross Judice, chief medical officer for a large ambulance company, recounted how on Tuesday, unable to find out when helicopters would land to pick up critically ill patients at the Superdome, he walked outside and discovered that two helicopters, donated by an oil services company, had been waiting in the parking lot.

Are they going to try to blame that on FEMA? Did FEMA block his vision of his own parking lot?

Louisiana and New Orleans have received a total of about $750 million in federal emergency and terrorism preparedness grants in the last four years, Homeland Security Department officials said. Mr. Chertoff said he recognized that the local government's capacity to respond to the disaster was severely compromised by the hurricane and flood.

If it was not for the hurricane and flood, no response would have been necessary

"What happened here was that essentially, the demolishment of that state and local infrastructure, and I think that really caused the cascading series of breakdowns," he said.

And not following their own disaster plans here and here.

But Mayor Nagin said the root of the breakdown was the failure of the federal government to deliver relief supplies and personnel quickly.

Did he use up all of the state's relief supplies and personnel? They did have some, didn't they?

"They kept promising and saying things would happen," he said. "I was getting excited and telling people that. They kept making promises and promises."