|
| |
Hurricane Katrina: Liberal
Politics Kill
Politics/Frank
Salvato, Managing Editor |
September 9, 2005
- Senator Huey "Kingfish” Long, who once boasted that
he bought legislators "like sacks of potatoes” and "shuffled them like a
deck of cards,” must find the actions of his Democratic Party, both in
Washington and his home state of Louisiana, ironic. Assassinated for having
taken his backroom politics a bit too far, even he must be skeptical of the
job his contemporary counterparts are doing to uphold the tradition of self
serving manipulation, their partisan politics having killed people.
The shriekers of the mainstream media and the liberal left must have stopped
by the "unlooted” stores of their hometowns for brand new batteries for the
bullhorns because the hate-Bush, "let’s blame him for everything” crowd is
more shrill than ever. Perhaps they should have picked up some unbiased
reading material in the form of the New Orleans disaster plan or the
Standard Operating Procedures for FEMA. Being educated on how a disaster
response is set-up to work would have been a brilliant idea before the
pointing of the liberal finger of blame.
If all politics is local, disaster response is even more so. From the
smallest fire department to the most rural chapters of national aid
organizations, disaster response is first and foremost the responsibility
and jurisdiction of local authorities. Because no one knows a location
better than those who live there, primary disaster response and emergency
management fall under the authority of local governments. That is why local
governments are charged with putting in place plans that make sense for
their communities.
Because interjecting politics into disaster response situations is the most
ridiculous, foolish and dangerous thing that can happen, disaster response
authority works against the grain. If a town floods or a hurricane hits, the
request for emergency management moves up the chain, not down. Mayors ask
for help from the state authorities (sometimes the county) and then in the
event of a major tragedy – as in Hurricane Katrina – the state asks for help
from the federal authorities. Until assistance is requested, the authority –
and responsibility – for managing and executing emergency operations rests
upon the shoulders of the more local levels of government. That’s just the
way it is.
In the case of Hurricane Katrina, the elected officials at the helm of the
local and state authorities failed miserably. There can be no other way to
look at this issue. If the local and state governments would have performed
for their people at an acceptable level more people would be alive today.
Local government – read New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and his staff – were
poorly prepared to carry out their emergency management plan. Not only had
they not prepared for the flood scenario of a Category 4 or 5 hurricane –
which is leaving hurricane evacuation experts all over the country
scratching their heads – they didn’t utilize the resources that were
available to them up until the very the last moments before the disaster
occurred.
Evidence to this negligence can be seen in the unutilized New Orleans school
buses, now submerged where they were parked. They remained idle while the
limited number of municipal buses rushed to ferry most of the poor from
Jefferson Perish to the "last resort” shelters, which are those not set-up
to provide food or water to their occupants.
Nagin’s biggest failure, however, is the fact that he was delinquent in
calling for the evacuation of New Orleans until time was already running
out. Even after a phone call from Max Mayfield, the director of the National
Hurricane Center, at 8pm on the Saturday before Katrina’s landfall
confirming the dangers of the approaching storm, Nagin, citing "legal
complications,” waited until 10am Sunday to order the evacuation of New
Orleans, a city of 500,000-plus. Katrina hit New Orleans at 6am Monday.
Bill King, a former mayor from the Houston-Galveston Area who has been
integral in that area’s hurricane and disaster preparedness called Nagin’s
evacuation order delay "negligence.”
President Bush, in preparation for the devastation that Katrina was
predicted to leave in her wake, declared the three state area a federal
disaster area two days before landfall and ordered FEMA to move truck loads
of supplies to within safe distances from where experts said the most damage
would occur. But because Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco feared political
blame from the Bush Administration for any acts of incompetence she didn’t
cede authority by requesting federal assistance. FEMA resources and other
federally coordinated assistance sat idle, thwarted by the Louisiana
Department of Homeland Security.
Further, Blanco – doing her best Ray Nagin impersonation – was delinquent in
ordering the Louisiana National Guard to quell the looting, the raping and
the violence that inundated not only the Superdome and convention center but
all the streets of New Orleans, until the damage was already done. A recent
story recounts how two children were raped to death, that’s right two
children raped to death inside the Superdome.
Governor Blanco’s response was to hire former Clinton FEMA Director James
Lee Witt to handle the catastrophe management. To this day she has not ceded
power to the federal government although Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi
remain federal disaster areas.
Nancy Pelosi stated, "If somebody is incompetent, has no credentials for the
job that he holds…brings nothing to the table of the level of competence and
accountability…” while calling for FEMA Director Michael Brown’s dismissal.
Am I the only one or does anyone else believe she should be leveling those
exact charges against Kathleen Blanco and Ray Nagin, members of the
compassionate Democratic Party?
The big difference between Huey Long’s corrupt political tenure and that of
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco’s is
that Long was calculating and cunning in his political manipulation. The
only thing that can be said for Nagin and Blanco is that their politics have
killed people.
Related Reading:
Governor Blanco Piddles While New Orleans Burns
http://www.bayoubuzz.com/articles.aspx?aid=4934
Pelosi Joins Call To Remove FEMA Director
http://www.nbc11.com/news/4942198/detail.html
Don’t Blame Only Feds
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/344065p-293598c.html
Democrats Blame ‘Oblivious’ Bush
http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050908-101031-8272r
Democrats Will Oppose Katrina Committees; ‘Sham and a Charade’
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Democrats_will_oppose_Katrina_committees_Sham_and_0908.html
City had evacuation plan but strayed from strategy
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3344347
|
|
