More on Katrina

Phi83 · Jan 31, 2006

MR. MEOWGI said:

Next time a cat 5 hurricane comes towards my house in Clear Lake to put it under 20 feet of water I aint going anywhere because I dont trust them there forecasts and the government neither. That weatherman looks fruity anyways... Yee-haw!
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Thats silly not to trust Radar the Weather Dog...

rimrocker · Feb 2, 2006

Party of Responsibility.

Scalding criticism of administration's Katrina response
GAO report blames leaders at the top for a host of missteps
- Spencer S. Hsu, Amy Goldstein, Washington Post
Thursday, February 2, 2006

Washington -- Responsibility for the government's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina extends widely but begins at the top of the Bush administration, which failed before the storm to name a White House, homeland security or other senior aide in command of the looming disaster, congressional investigators reported Wednesday.

Four years after the Sept. 11, attacks, administration officials did not establish a clear chain of command for the domestic emergency; disregarded early warnings of a Category 5 hurricane inundating New Orleans and southeast Louisiana; and did not ensure that cities and states had adequate plans and training before the Aug. 29 storm, according to the Government Accountability Office.

"A single individual -- directly responsible and accountable to the president of the United States -- should be dedicated to act as the central focal point to lead and coordinate the overall federal response," GAO chief David Walker said, summarizing preliminary findings from 30 pending Katrina-related studies.

The blistering report represents the first official findings on the government's performance in Katrina. It is the first of a series of reviews in coming weeks that are expected to fix blame and refocus scrutiny on the administration's handling of the nation's costliest natural disaster, which killed 1,307 people and caused more than $150 billion in damage along the Gulf Coast.

The report comes as President Bush prepares to unveil another hurricane relief and Iraq war package as early as Feb. 13, which could total well over $50 billion. The government already has allocated $85 billion to respond to the hurricane, according to the White House.

Bush aides, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and designees such as former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Mike Brown failed to take leadership role during the hurricane, Walker said, underscoring "the immaturity of and weaknesses" of national preparations for terrorism and disaster.

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., who asked Walker to report to a House investigation whose work is due Feb. 15, said Bush aides from Vice President Dick Cheney to Chief of Staff Andrew Card to Homeland Security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend "were just not prepared for a storm of this magnitude.

"The director ... of the National Hurricane Center said this was the big one," Davis said, but "when this happened ... Bush is in Texas. Card is in Maine. The vice president is fly-fishing. I mean, who's in charge here?"

A spokesman for Chertoff, who has largely escaped criticism after the storm, called the GAO report "premature and unprofessional." He said it is filled with basic errors because investigators have not yet spoken with department leaders.

"We have already acknowledged that Katrina revealed problems in national response capabilities, stretching back more than a decade," spokesman Russ Knocke said. "DHS will announce a comprehensive strategy" for improvements "in the very near future," he said.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Townsend's deputy, Ken Rapuano, was the White House "point man" throughout the crisis and Card's deputy was serving as the top staffer with Bush in Crawford, Texas.

"The Homeland Security Department and the rest of the government, meaning not the White House, were the ones in the lead for operations," Perino said.

Townsend is completing a White House review of what went wrong, which congressional aides expect to be announced about the time Chertoff reveals plans to retool FEMA, probably on Feb. 13.

Members of Congress have cautioned that the White House report will not be independent and objective. Davis, Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the chairman and ranking member respectively of a Senate Katrina investigation, repeated criticisms that the White House is failing to cooperate fully. The senators asked Card to weigh Senate findings before proposing changes.

"If we produce separate agendas, we risk conflict and a fragmented approach," Collins and Lieberman wrote to Card on Tuesday. "But if we work together, our chances of achieving success multiply."

House Democrats updated by Rapuano last month said their review identified more than 60 flaws, including breakdowns of a new emergency National Response Plan, federal command and control, communications and homeland security planning, as well as an overemphasis on terrorism instead of natural threats.

Brown and his Clinton administration predecessor, James Lee Witt, separately praised the GAO report Wednesday and argued, respectively, that FEMA should be freed from Homeland Security Department budget cuts and bureaucracy, and that its leader should be restored to a Cabinet-level presidential appointee.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/02/02/MNGMIH1F351.DTL
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MadMax · Feb 2, 2006

oh, and there were tornadoes there last night.

Phi83 · Feb 2, 2006

rimrocker said:

Party of Responsibility.
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Mother Nature is the only thing I know who is truly "responsible" for Katrina...

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