Saturday, September 03, 2005
Am I Over Reacting?
No!
Some have said that my generally condemnation of the government response to Hurricane Katrina has been a bit overboard. But based on my understanding of how things work within government and here in DC, I think I'm being a bit tempered in my criticisms.
Here in Washington, DC we have over a million federal employees and many more employees of trade/industry associations who basically spend out time thinking about how the government should respond to various types of scenarios. Higher oil prices, interest rates, a supply crunch of a product? That kind of think. In fact after 9/11 the Congress and Administration voted to create the largest federal agency outside of the Department of Defense...The Department of Homeland Security. This mega agency was supposed to have spent the last four years preparing the federal response to natural or man made (terrorist) attacks on major American cities. In other words, the federal government pays people to sit around and think about these things. As mentioned yesterday, FEMA (An agency within DHS) had done a simulation on a category five hurricane hitting New Orleans just last year. The Times-Picayune of New Orleans did five piece report on this type of disaster in 2003, and the History Channel had a special on New Orleans years ago (complete with a computer simulation of New Orleans Flooding). The Federal Government failure is near complete.
Instapundint had a link early this week (and his coverage has been stellar!) that discussed dropping leaflets on New Orleans as help was in route. This would have given some connection between the people on the ground and the authorities. In fact, after a killer ice storm left 1000s without power in the Northeast, utility companies dropped flyers telling folks that restoring power would take time. Dropping flyers could have been followed by food and water drops and this could have been simultaneous to the rescue efforts.
A lot has been said over the last few weeks of what kind of message Cindy Sheehan was sending to our enemies. The response to this catastrophe begs the question, what kind of message has the Federal Government is sending to our enemies. A dirty bomb let loose in DC would require a similar sized evacuation, the longer folks remained in the area, the greater the death toll..minutes matter, days delay is unacceptable.
That said, things are getting better. President Bush's compassion seems to be kicking in (If only he could deactivate his three day time lag on this sort of thing). The coast guard has been stunningly competent. FEMA and DHS less so. State governors responses have been stellar as well and the private charitable response has been great.
As former chief of staff for a Congressman, I'm also rather appalled by the lack of symbolic and actual leadership shown by our leaders. President Bush did visit the area yesterday, but as I joked, he was shaking hands with a bunch of well scrubbed white folks at safe locations which stood in sharp contrast to the 1,000s of poor, mostly black folks suffering in New Orleans. Speaker of the House Dennis Hasstert, who flew back to Washington for the Terri Shciavo vote, coordinated the vote in the House yesterday by phone because he had a fundraiser to attend! Dick Cheney is still on vacation. Who are advising these people? The missed opportunities to build confidence and to comfort and calm us have floored me. This is politics 101, get out there and talk the issue, comfort, console and reassure. And I'm not even that bright when it comes to this sort thing.
It's not that Bush doesn't care, he does. He's getting better as the days go by. But we've spent billions in the last few years to prepare for just this type of disaster and we've failed in our initial response and it is likely that 100s, if not more, have died as a result.
Some have said that my generally condemnation of the government response to Hurricane Katrina has been a bit overboard. But based on my understanding of how things work within government and here in DC, I think I'm being a bit tempered in my criticisms.
Here in Washington, DC we have over a million federal employees and many more employees of trade/industry associations who basically spend out time thinking about how the government should respond to various types of scenarios. Higher oil prices, interest rates, a supply crunch of a product? That kind of think. In fact after 9/11 the Congress and Administration voted to create the largest federal agency outside of the Department of Defense...The Department of Homeland Security. This mega agency was supposed to have spent the last four years preparing the federal response to natural or man made (terrorist) attacks on major American cities. In other words, the federal government pays people to sit around and think about these things. As mentioned yesterday, FEMA (An agency within DHS) had done a simulation on a category five hurricane hitting New Orleans just last year. The Times-Picayune of New Orleans did five piece report on this type of disaster in 2003, and the History Channel had a special on New Orleans years ago (complete with a computer simulation of New Orleans Flooding). The Federal Government failure is near complete.
Instapundint had a link early this week (and his coverage has been stellar!) that discussed dropping leaflets on New Orleans as help was in route. This would have given some connection between the people on the ground and the authorities. In fact, after a killer ice storm left 1000s without power in the Northeast, utility companies dropped flyers telling folks that restoring power would take time. Dropping flyers could have been followed by food and water drops and this could have been simultaneous to the rescue efforts.
A lot has been said over the last few weeks of what kind of message Cindy Sheehan was sending to our enemies. The response to this catastrophe begs the question, what kind of message has the Federal Government is sending to our enemies. A dirty bomb let loose in DC would require a similar sized evacuation, the longer folks remained in the area, the greater the death toll..minutes matter, days delay is unacceptable.
That said, things are getting better. President Bush's compassion seems to be kicking in (If only he could deactivate his three day time lag on this sort of thing). The coast guard has been stunningly competent. FEMA and DHS less so. State governors responses have been stellar as well and the private charitable response has been great.
As former chief of staff for a Congressman, I'm also rather appalled by the lack of symbolic and actual leadership shown by our leaders. President Bush did visit the area yesterday, but as I joked, he was shaking hands with a bunch of well scrubbed white folks at safe locations which stood in sharp contrast to the 1,000s of poor, mostly black folks suffering in New Orleans. Speaker of the House Dennis Hasstert, who flew back to Washington for the Terri Shciavo vote, coordinated the vote in the House yesterday by phone because he had a fundraiser to attend! Dick Cheney is still on vacation. Who are advising these people? The missed opportunities to build confidence and to comfort and calm us have floored me. This is politics 101, get out there and talk the issue, comfort, console and reassure. And I'm not even that bright when it comes to this sort thing.
It's not that Bush doesn't care, he does. He's getting better as the days go by. But we've spent billions in the last few years to prepare for just this type of disaster and we've failed in our initial response and it is likely that 100s, if not more, have died as a result.
