I agree. All sides were in the wrong. There is plenty of blame to go around in how that mess was handeled.
But it wasn't hindsight. I was responding to your hypothetical. Also the newly discovered document shows that FEMA had warning, so it shouldn't have been hindsight then either.
warning or a weather forecast? guess what? earlier this week, they called for showers all day wed and thurs in houston....peek out the window
This wasn't the first Hurricane to hit the U.S.... Why do Floridians, Texans and Mississippians know what to do when a storm hits compared to Lousianians. I would say the blame lies with the local government. The forgotten people of this storm are residents of the Mississippi and Alabama gulf coast, everything was destroyed in that area and you don't hear people blame FEMA for any slow responses in those areas. Until you go to the Ms Gulf Coast and see the devastation you would think from the News that NO was the only place hit. Waveland, Bay St Louis, Gulfport, and Biloxi are gone, GONE! You can see where the surge came in at 25 feet, there is no bark on trees!
how about 18 hrs to move 60 miles because they couldnt figure out a quick way to use the outbound lanes of I 10? How about people dieing on the highway due to dehydration because they ran out of gas in 100 degree heat? how about people who were virtually prisoners in their own home because leaving the city w/ all the traffic wasnt an option (turned out to be the lucky ones actually). How about the bus full of senoir citizens from Bellaire (which by the way, was fairly unaffected on the whole) that blew up?
I don't live in Houston. I do know the difference between a five day weather forcast and a hurricane watch. They had warning. But it doesn't matter. If they prepared and it turned out to not be so bad, then outside of a little inconvenience then nobody was hurt.
The same people who complain about the gov't spending taxpayer money on war are the same ones wanting the gov't to gamble the same money that Dr Frank Fields knows what he is talking about.
What are you talking about, compared to Lousiana, we were ready. I don't know about you, but I live in Kemah and evacuted to Hockley. My house is 100ft from the water, we boarded up and evacuted that Wednesday. The only issue I saw was people evacutation that should not have evacuted. Houston was prepared, it may not have been perfect, but we were prepared.
I know friends who work for FEMA and in my opinion that is not where the blame goes. They have never been good or fast. Ever! Ask the people in Florida who went through several hurricanes prior to Katrina. FEMA does not come in and manage these disasters, they never have before anyway. Local authorities are in charge and once they ask FEMA to come in, then FEMA comes in and sets up the framework for federal disaster loans for people. That has been their historical response mode. FEMA has always been a slow moving govt. agency when it comes to hurricane disasters. Did you here anyone complain in Florida about FEMA after all their hurricane hits? Or people in East Texas complain about FEMA after their recent hit? Or North Carolina? NO because what makes a difference is local response and efforts. Ask people in North Carolina about their last hurricane, how FEMA worked for them. FEMA is slow, costly, inefficient just like most every other agency of the federal govt. but they aren't supposed to go in as first responders and save people in disasters. If New Orleans was depending upon FEMA they have the worst elected officials of any city and state. If you had gone to the State of Louisiana and City of New Orleans websites (I did) right after Katrina hit you would have been able to read their complete hurricane emergency response plan - and FEMA wasn't in it and had no leadership role in their own plan. I am not a big Bush supporter but all this defending FEMA by Bush is politcal- Bush just doesn't want the bad publicity. FEMA is bad and slow and inefficient, but I don't think they were picking on New Orleans. FEMA is an equal opportunity blunder.
You are correct, there were no counter flow lanes and there were some major mistakes as far as evacuation routing of the major highways, like HW225 being shut down because of terrorist threats to the refineries in Baytown. I am not saying that our evacutation planning was perfect by any means. But when you can compare it to NO, its night and day. Also, remember that this was the largest evacuation of any major American city, when you move 2 million people there may be some problems that crop up.
I don't know if you live in Houston, but there is a "sweet spot" that Rita was taking direct aim for that is between Freeport and Galveston. If Rita had hit there you would not have had the same attitude. Please refer to the link provide to give the type of damage scale that Houston would have reaped... Houston may not have any levees, but we are only 6ft about sea level, if Rita had hit, it would have put a wall of water 10ft high into downtown Houston. Johnson Space Center Analysis on Cat 5 Hurricane
One on the magnitude of Katrina? Yes. The feds could have and should have helped with the evac, and certainly should have helped plan it before the event. You know at some point a hurricane is going to hit that part of the world, so you should have routes and transportation figured out, a plan for law enforcement to initiate and assist, and a place for folks to go and a means for taking care of them. Some supplies could be staged beforehand. Communications equipment could be staged beforehand. A communications plan could be put in place beforehand, so that everyone knows what frequencies to use where. The bulk of the stuff sits outside the area and rolls as soon as possible. You know that some of the area may not be reachable by roads, so you make sure you have enough helicopters and boats to do what is needed and you have a command structure and plan in place that allows you to use those resources effectively. You identify a bunch of boat launches and helispots and supply depots beforehand, then make a decision as to which are still functional. After your first assesment, you immediately break up the area into small chunks and put someone in charge of each chunk with the instructions to do search and rescue and provide supplies. It's not rocket science. It is hard work and the challenges are great and bad things happen, but we as a country have the ability to respond to something like Katrina and for the life of me, I don't understand how it turned out this bad. Here are some excerpts from an After Action Review by one of the Fire Teams that ended up in NOLA on Thursday. (They were ordered by FEMA on Monday and in the area on Tuesday, but didn't get instructions from FEMA until Thursday.) I have removed info that would show which team this is and where this Team was exactly, and I haven't included some stuff out of sensitivity to the Team and others. Just about all the problems mentioned here could have been solved or greatly diminished by planning and leadership. The full report was forwarded through the channels to DHS/FEMA.
I do live here...and I'm aware of what you say....but none of it happened...and thats why you think the evacuation was so successful.
