Subscribe"Katrina already is measured as one of the worst storms in American history. And yet, President Bush decided that his plans to commemorate the 60th anniversary of VJ Day with a speech were more pressing than responding to the carnage.
A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead, and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free of disease.
The cool, confident, intuitive leadership Bush exhibited in his first term, particularly in the months immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, has vanished. In its place is a diffident detachment unsuitable for the leader of a nation facing war, natural disaster and economic uncertainty."
"In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.
In 1993, President Clinton nominated James L. Witt as the new FEMA director. Witt became the first agency director with experience as a state emergency manager. He initiated sweeping reforms that streamlined disaster relief and recovery operations, insisted on a new emphasis regarding preparedness and mitigation, and focused agency employees on customer service. The end of the Cold War also allowed Witt to redirect more of FEMA's limited resources from civil defense into disaster relief, recovery and mitigation programs.
In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Joe M. Allbaugh as the director of FEMA. Within months, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11th focused the agency on issues of national preparedness and homeland security, and tested the agency in unprecedented ways. The agency coordinated its activities with the newly formed Office of Homeland Security, and FEMA's Office of National Preparedness was given responsibility for helping to ensure that the nation's first responders were trained and equipped to deal with weapons of mass destruction.
Being prepared for a disaster is basic emergency management, disaster experts say.
For example, in the 1990s, in planning for a New Orleans nightmare scenario, the federal government figured it would pre-deploy nearby ships with pumps to remove water from the below-sea-level city and have hospital ships nearby, said James Lee Witt, who was FEMA director under President Clinton.
I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Suhayda studies hurricanes. And he's brought me to the French Quarter to show what could happen if the most powerful kind of hurricane hits New Orleans.
JOE SUHAYDA: So this indicates the depth of water that would occur above this ground in a category five hurricane.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: It's hard to comprehend, really.
JOE SUHAYDA: It is really, to think that that much water would occur during this catastrophic storm.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: So basically the part of New Orleans that most people in the United States and around the world think of as New Orleans would disappear under water.
JOE SUHAYDA:: That's right. During the worst of the storm, most of this area would be covered by 15 to 20 feet of water.
...
WALTER MAESTRI: Well, when the exercise was completed it was evident that we were going to lose a lot of people we changed the name of the storm from Delaney to K-Y-A-G-B... kiss your ass goodbye... because anybody who was here as that Category Five storm came across... was gone.
...
WALTER MAESTRI: The hurricane is spinning counter-clockwise. It's been pushing in front of it water from the Gulf of Mexico for days. It's now got a wall of water in front of it some 30, 40 feet high. As it approaches the levies of the-- the-- that surround the city, it tops those levees. As the storm continues to pass over. Now Lake Ponchetrain, that water from Lake Ponchartrain is now pushed on to that - those population which has been fleeing from the western side and everybody's caught in the middle. The bowl now completely fills. And we've now got the entire community underwater some 20, 30 feet underwater. Everything is lost.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Remember the levees which the Army built, to hold smaller floods out of the bowl? Maestri says now those levees would doom the city. Because they'd trap the water in.
Gen. Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defence staff, said he spoke with his American counterpart, Gen. Dick Myers, to offer assistance.I can't believe it's Thursday night and they haven't been able to leave yet. On the bright side:
He said Myers thanked him, but said the Pentagon is still analyzing what is needed.
Hillier said the military's Disaster Assistance Response Team or DART, which can provide medical care, power and clean water, could head south on 48 hours notice.
He said Canada could provide transport planes or helicopters, electrical generators, water purification systems, small boats for navigating the waterways of the region and engineering equipment and expertise.
He said his staff are planning to load a selection of such gear about a warship to be ready in the event Washington asks for help.
It's best to be prepared, he said.
"We want to help. We believe that's what being friends and allies is all about."
The Canadian Red Cross was sending a team of 100 to 200 experienced disaster workers to bolster the American Red Cross staff in the region.
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(Not saying this isn't tragic and heartbreaking, but, well, it would cheapen Katrina if I compared it to a car accident I saw last week, too.)
posted by Plutor at 10:04 AM on September 1, 2005