If critics of the Hurricane Katrina disaster are going to play the blame game, they should at least play according to Hoyle.
A comment to a Blogs for Bush posting sums up my thoughts on the issue clearly. I’m reposting it here in its entirety:
In case you aren’t familiar with how our government is SUPPOSED to work:
The chain of responsiblity for the protection of the citizens in New Orleans is:1. The Mayor
2. The New Orleans director of Homeland Security (a political appointee of the Governor who reports to the Governor)
3. The Governor
4. The Head of Homeland Security
5. The PresidentWhat did each do?
1. The mayor, with 5 days advance, waited until 2 days before he announced a mandatory evacuation (at the behest of the President). The he failed to provide transportation for those without transport even though he had hundreds of buses at his disposal.
2. The New Orleans director of Homeland Security failed to have any plan for a contingency that has been talked about for 50 years. Then he blames the Feds for not doing what he should have done. (So much for political appointees)
3. The Governor, despite a declaration of disaster by the President 2 DAYS BEFORE the storm hit, failed to take advantage of the offer of Federal troops and aid. Until 2 DAYS AFTER the storm hit.
4. The Director of Homeland Security positioned assets in the area to be ready when the Governor called for them
5. The President urged a mandatory evacuation, and even declared a disaster State of Emergency, freeing up millions of dollars of federal assistance, should the Governor decide to use it.
Oh and by the way, the levees that broke were the responsibility of the local landowners and the local levee board to maintain, NOT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
The disaster in New Orleans is what you get after decades of corrupt (democrat) government going all the way back to Huey Long.
Funds for disaster protection and relief have been flowing into this city for decades, and where has it gone, but into the pockets of the politicos and their friends.
Decades of socialist government in New Orleans has sapped all self reliance from the community, and made them dependent upon government for every little thing.
Political correctness and a lack of will to fight crime have created the single most corrupt police force in the country, and has permitted gang violence to flourish.
The sad thing is that there are many poor folks who have suffered and died needlessly because those that they voted into office failed them.
For those who missed item 5 (where the President’s level of accountability is discussed), it is made more clear in a New Orleans Times-Picayune article dated August 28:
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — In the face of a catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by Mayor Ray Nagin.
Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would be unable to leave, the city set up 10 places of last resort for people to go, including the Superdome.
The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order because airlines had already cancelled all flights.
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. (emphasis mine)
The ball was placed in Mayor Nagin’s court to carry out the evacuation order. With a 5-day heads-up, he had the authority to use any and all services to evacuate all residents from the city, as documented in a city emergency preparedness plan. By waiting until the last minute, and failing to make full use of resources available within city limits, Nagin and his administration f**ked up.
Mayor Nagin and his emergency sidekick Terry Ebbert have displayed lethal, mind boggling incompetence before, during and after Katrina.[…]
As for Mayor Nagin, he and his profile in pathetic leadership police chief should resign as well. That city’s government is incompetent from one end to the other. The people of New Orleans deserve better than this crowd of clowns is capable of giving them.
If you’re keeping track, these boobs let 569 buses that could have carried 33,350 people out of New Orleans–in one trip–get ruined in the floods. Whatever plan these guys had, it was a dud. Or it probably would have been if they’d bothered to follow it.
As for all the race-baiting rhetoric and Bush-bashing coming from prominent blacks on the left, don’t expect Ray Nagin to be called out on the carpet for falling short. You want to know why? Here’s why:
It’s more convenient to blame a white president for what went wrong than to hold a black mayor and his administration accountable for gross negligence and failing to fully carry out an established emergency preparedness plan.
To hold Nagin and his administration accountable for dropping the ball amounts to letting loose the shouts and cries of “Racism!�. It’s sad, it’s wrong, but it’s standard operating procedure for the media and left-wing black leadership.
Mark my words: you will not hear a word of criticism from Jesse Jackson Sr., Randall Robinson, the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP, or Kanye West being directed toward Clarence Ray Nagin Jr. Why? Because he is just another black politician instead of a responsible elected official who happens to be black. In the mindset of more-blacker-than-thou blacks, black politicians who are on their side can do no wrong.
(links via Sister Toldjah, Balloon Juice, and Ramblings’ Journal)
Update: JunkYardBlog points out more evacuation plans at the state level which weren’t implemented.
Update #2: Going back to playing the blame game according to Hoyle, Dean Esmay notes that other Louisiana politicians (all with ties to the Big Easy) who should be held accountable.
Newslinks on Katrina and how it relates to people of color, the impoverished and the bush administration.
DC, thanks for posting this — it seems that most people on-screen have the chain of responsibility backwards, and are making up excuse after excuse to blame Bush. Idiots.
Political correctness and a lack of will to fight crime have created the single most corrupt police force in the country, and has permitted gang violence to flourish.>>
When I was still working in New Orleans for the phone company (I moved to Nashville 15 years ago) one could easily keep track of the Julian Calander date by keeping up with the Murder rate to date for the year. New Orleans had about a murder a day, sometimes more, sometimes less, but usually the Julian Date + or – five.
Watching this I have been as mad as anyone at the Mayor, Gov and our President. Now that I am seeing more of the relief come in it is becoming more obvious what has occurred. Alabama and Mississippi were prepared and have responded as well as could be expected based on the amount of damage. Louisiana did not prepare, did not evacuate, did not step up and have its elected officials show leadership and reach out for Federal help when it was initially available.
With all the help we see being given by the great state of Texas could anyone with half a brain not figure out that President Bush has (behind the scenes) made sure that his home state stepped up and demonstrated all the qualities that Louisiania officials have failed to show.
Dave, You are brilliant. That’s a conspiracy I haven’t thought of. This whole time, everything Bush has done has been about getting rid of our nation’s oil supply…including this hurricane that Bush created. He did it to ruin the oil supplies. He’s probably been funneling government money to Texas, too. I bet when he’s done being President, he moves back to Texas and completes his evil conspiracy by declaring himself king. He probably moved all the people from New Orleans to have an indentured class there to serve him. Gosh darn it, Dave. You are brilliant. So, now we’ve credited someone who you believe is the dumbest man alive with controlling the country, the money, and even the weather. He must be really dumb. Thank God we have people like you who are smart enough to see around it all!
Something that you didn’t mention was why martial law was not declared in NO prior to the storm hitting with a shoot-to-kill
warning. The govenor could have gotten on the tube/radio and announced “if you’re caught screwing around you’ll be shot
on site. Such a warning might have persuaded the rabble that decided to loot and shoot to behave.
Bob says:
DC I was earlier on a liberal blog that was 15 strong accusing Bushies
for everything from sabotaging the levees to flying the 4 planes on
911 and pushing Katrina so it would hit New Orleans. It was a gas. I
had a great time there. Wish I had been here before so I could have
laid some cold hard facts like the 569 buses and also the New Orleans
Emergency Preparedness “fact sheet”. Oh well they would not have
allowed the truth though, it hurts too much. The host started
scrambling my entry. Keep up the good work.
I know alot of people did not do their jobs to the extent they should have.
I know that alot of people died needlessly . . and that is a crime . .
I feel that now is not the time , to waste energy slamming each other .
I feel now is the time to get a move on and find every single person
that has been injured and displaced by Katrina , a safe , warm place to live .
Now is the time to seriously consider what’s to be done about the state of
Louisiana . . do you spend billions fixing it up . . or do you let it go
and spend those billions , settling every survivor of this catastrophe some–
where else . . somewhere , safe and warm and help them to get jobs and relocations
help . .
It’s time to move forward . . and let the blame takes it’s course later . .
when every single person is home . . safe and sound . .
P. S. This , like New York City . . during the 9/11 attacks . . is proof
that WE are sitting here on our duffs , with our pants down . . waiting to
be struck down . . WE need to wake up and smell the coffee . .
Love . . Georgia
Why are you placeing blame? Who’s fault it is that Katrina was such a disaster
should not be an issue any longer. It all happened and now the most important
thing to help the people who now don’t have anything. Yes I agree that something
more should have been done to prevent this from being so horrible, but placeing
blame isn’t helping anything. It will only make things worse.
I agree with you and you hit the nail so squarely on head. There was so much available information predicing that New Orleans would flood with a CAT 3 or greater hurracane, especially in area where the poorer people live as it is in the lowest area. It was also noted in existing reports that this area is where the people probably would not have transportation and /or the ability to leave. The Mayor/Governor should have seen fit to provide them transporation and effected a timly evacuation. The responsibility for the unnecessary lost of so many lives lies on the shoulders of the local and state officials. A plan should have been in place to do such as well as other aspects of a disaster of this magnitude.
As always the best defense is an offense, so lets blame others for our failure.
Why was so much money allocated to build a casino before the area had been impvoed upon by fixing the levees? Why weren’t the available school buses used to evacuate those people who had no transportation? Can mayors and governor be impeached for derelict of dut y.?
Ladies:
I, as well as anyone with half a heart or conscience are sick over people dying and suffering needlessly but I can tell you why people are placing blame squarely on the shoulders of the Mayor and Governor…we are sick and tired of all the Bush bashing and the political posturing by Hillary and the other left-wingers desperately seeking the presidency or other political office. I am a single mother of three sons that works full-time, and is going to college full-time to better myself and the only government help that I have received has been through Pell Grants for tuition. I’m sick of everyone wanting something for nothing and not willing to take responsibility for themselves. I’m tired of the Democratic Party encouraging this behavior and the recipients fully expecting it!
If we don’t start electing officials with some moral decency and backbone this country will continue having to pay for those that won’t contribute.
I think the natural desire of anyone in this kind of situation is to try and
understand the logic, the thinking behind the decisions. When you don’t have
all the info, you begin to name names, and in reality, asking who was accountable
is not “a blame game”. You have to have accountability to know who made what decisions
and why. This was quite simply a perfect storm. Multigenerational poverty,
self serving politicos, and the underestimated fury of the storm. It will be
years digging out. God bless those who were sacrificed on the altar of the
self serving and cowardly. This is not about republicans and democrats its about
human beings.
You should see some of the comments that were made over my ‘Blame Amid the Tragedy’ blog post. They are very hateful and vile.
If more people would see the truth in what has happened in New Orleans, and stop trying to blame the President for everything that happens to this country, maybe just maybe things could get better. What has happen to our leaders? They definately are leading anymore. They are playing CYA because of all the politically correct ness and the minority factions screaming that we are putting them down. What has happen to good ol’ COMMON SENCE? Doesn’t anyone have any, anymore? The things that have happened in NO could have been prevented had someone just used some common sense and a little bit of balls and not worried whose feeling they were going to hurt.
I just keep e-mailing the picture of the flooded school buses to every MSM that I have a e-mail list for. I urge everyone to do the same. It is a damn shame that the liberals and the Jessie Jackson racists have started a cover up for the mayor even before the bodies are counted. But the only way to defeat this kind of propaganda is to prove they are liars and the picture is the proof. They can deny, spin and twist on the MSM news but they cannot deny the pictures of the flooded buses. And the flood of e-mail is letting them know that the public knows they are liars.
Yes, local govt. screwed up. But one cannot discuss the mess without throwing the Ffeds in there. I have a feeling that when that meeting finally comes, heads are gonna roll in a thousand different directions.
Looking for someone to blame? Then blame yourself. We all seem to forget that we
are the government of the United States, NOT BUSH OR ANYONE ELSE. We, the stupid people who let men and women get
elected into public office who are corrupt, self-serving and so rich that they couldn’t
identify with the common man if they were paid to do such. And most get elected with less than 30% of the vote of the total population of the United States. Also, we need to blame ourselves for the never endingf taxes and money we pay to our governments, local, state and federal. After all, we gave them all the blank checks
and did not tell them who to make it out to or for how much.
Wake up people, we did this, no one else. SO REALIZE WHAT IS WRONG, AND THEN CHANGE IT!!!!!!
I just finished watching Dateline on tv. Mayor Nagin said that he made mistakes, like everyone else. He said what he should have done differently was “to scream louder”. Days after, with his city evacuated, his only plan- still was to scream louder. What a complete display of incompetance!
This will sound racist, but it is blacks and journalists who brought it up. They say that if FEMA wasn’t there as soon as Katrina passed with food, water, supplies, etc. if proves that George Bush doesn’t care about black people. I hope black people aren’t really that dumb and that it’s due to demagoguery.
They don’t seem to understand that it isn’t the role of the national government, or shouldn’t be, to take over the functions of every state and local government. The federal government should be the last resort, not the first.
These complaints suggest that they come from people who have been cared for so long that they have forgotten how to take care of themselves. It is astonishing to me that people could live with the constant danger of this catastrophe for year after year, with officials knowing how vulnerable the city was, and not have thought about what to do beyond “Tell everybody to get out.”
If they had given the matter a little thought they would have deployed all buses in the city and environs as soon as it became clear that Katrina would affect them. They would have had floodproofed shelters throughout the city ready to receive people, with boats for ferrying people out of the city in case of a flood. Those shelters would have included stores of emergency food, water and supplies in flood proof bunkers along with generators and radios so they could communicate with emergency responders with And they would have conducted drills at least once per year before hurricane season. By doing all this, people would learn to associate hurricanes with getting out of danger, instead of hunkering down and waiting or getting drunk.
Not in a disaster, according to Homeland Security. Nice try, though.
Finally someone has the “YOU KNOW WHAT ” to publish the truth. The Mayor is responsible and should be punished to the full extent of the law. He could have prevented many a needless deaths, instead, hid behind a microphone in some luxury office whinning and blaming someone else. Trying to confuse others so they would blame the Bush Administration. As far as corruption is concerned, Mempis Tennesseeians, wake up and smell the roses. Your money is being sucked right out of your pockets and being put into Electee’s pockets as we speak. PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS
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