Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Until we get all the facts out, any assignment of the responsibility for the human component of this natural and human-enhanced disaster must have an air of tentativeness to it. Nevertheless, here’s how it looks right now.

Besides the universal condemantion of FEMA’s failures, much of the early sparring seems to be centered on the role of Mayor Ray Nagin. A series of posts at Sivacracy suggests that the Rove machine has picked on him to be their fall guy:

• Blaming the Mayor (in which the city is accused of having failed its role as a first responder)
• Rove’s Talking Points: Blame the Mayor (in which the WSJ comes up with a surprisingly similar argument, with the bonus that the governor is also to blame for FEMAs failure to anything since she didn’t send “a timely request for specific aid” — those guys at FEMA just can’t think for themselves, you see)
• Blaming the Mayor: Part 3 (looking into who is spreading this it’s-the-locals’-fault line)

Whoever is spreading this story — most likely a part of the larger disinformation campaign — from what I can tell (and we don’t have all the facts) it seems to be pretty much baloney. We have federal supremacy; we have FEMA because a locality devastated by a huge disaster has lost the ability to act as first responder and/or is likely to be overwhelmed. And it sure isn’t the case that FEMA couldn’t act without an instruction book from a mayor or a governor as to whether food and water and doctors were needed.

But that doesn’t make the local officials heroes either. This mayor — and past mayors — are not blameless for the state of the infrastructure. [Although it’s notable that the Bush administration slashed federal funds to strengthen the levees and then (I gather) raided what was left for another purpose–Iraq.] This mayor — like past mayors — is not blameless for signing off (weeks in advance) on an evacuation policy that was, at best, radically insufficient to meet the needs of the poorest and most helpless. And this mayor, at least in hindsight, seems to have waited a long time to order an evacuation.

Even after the storm, there have been a number of very ugly reports of local authorities either blocking the Red Cross, or acting like racist thugs.

None of that excuses the total evil of FEMA’s sloath, failure and malfeasance both as the hurricane was approaching and after it hit: turning away help, providing too little itself, too late.

Nor does it excuse the person who appointed the incompetents at the helm. Oh no, not at all.

One of the Daily Kos diarists has a Another NO Story from the inside, a first-person account of being trapped in the Big Uneasy.

I’ve included just part of this ugly story below. It’s very ugly, and I urge you to read all of the original, it’s horrific stuff.

Revolutions have started over less.

[Update: Original source, via Dave Farber’s list.]

Continue reading →

Obsidian Wings makes the case in At All Levels that the Mayor of New Orleans waited too long to order an evacuation. Yes, the hurricane track was originally away from the city, but even after it shifted, there was first no order, then a request for a ‘voluntary’ evacuation, and then, at least nine hours late, the actual order.

(None of which absolves the feds for a substantial failure to pre-position assets, and a very near total failure to get into gear once the hurricane had passed.)

liberal pen pal .:. FEMA: Agency of the Damned has lnks to all kinds of help that FEMA turned away. Amazing.

Sue Ann, who lives her principles and does good in her spare time, is getting madder and madder:

On Wednesday 4 private jet ambulances left Miami to respond to the direct pleas of 4 New Orleans Hospitals that had requested help transporting ventilator patients from the evacuation area.

The jets landed in NO and waited 7 hours on the tarmac then were REFUSED and turned back by the National Guard. No patients were transported. The planes next went to Baton Rouge and picked up whomever they could.

A Florida man who spent his own money to buy 150 flatboats to help with the evacuation was REFUSED again by the National Guard. The would not allow him to give the boats to aid the rescue efforts. He turned back and gave them out in MIssissippi which isn’t as flood damaged.

Food being shipped to the area is also being turned back. Caravans of individuals can’t donate food. If it’s not done through the proper channels of some “approved” religious organization you can’t help.

When I saw this quote on Atrios’s site, I thought it was a parody.

But Editor and Publisher, to whom he cites, is reporting it as straight news:

Barbara Bush: Things Working Out “Very Well” for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans NEW YORK Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, “This is working very well for them.”

The former First Lady’s remarks were aired this evening on National Public Radio’s “Marketplace” program.

Then she added: “What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this–this [she chuckles slightly]is working very well for them.”

And here’s a link to the audio of the NPR Marketplace segment containing this incredible quote. It’s real. Although some people might I suppose call it a nervous giggle rather than a chuckle.

PS. E&P actually ameliorated the quote from la Bush. What she said on the tape about New Orleans’ newly destitute is: “What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is that they want to stay” in Texas.