US President George W. Bush (C) speaks at the New Orleans International Airport. Bush was joined by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (L), Lousiana Governor Kathleen Blanco (R) and Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown (2nd-L)
The State and Federal Response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster has been SLOW and INADEQUATE.
The photo above shows the four people (STOOGES) ultimately responsible. Three are elected officials and voters will hold them accountable and the last, Michael Brown, the FEMA chief is appointed by the President.
Michael Brown should be fired and replaced immediately. His management of disaster relief has failed miserably.
Michelle Malkin has MEMO TO BUSH: FIRE MICHAEL BROWN.
During his visit to Mobile, Ala., on Friday, President Bush singled out Michael D. Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for praise:
“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.“
Really? “Brownie’s” job is to direct the federal response to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. Let’s review his public statements during the past week:
- He admitted that he didn’t act more aggressively because as late as last Sunday he expected Katrina to be a “standard hurricane” even though the National Weather Service in New Orleans was already predicting “human suffering incredible by modern standards.”
- He proved himself utterly clueless about the disaster unfolding in New Orleans. He claimed that the federal relief effort was “going relatively well” and that the security situation in New Orleans was “pretty darn good.”
- He blamed the flood victims in New Orleans for failing to evacuate on time, even though local authorities failed to make municipal vehicles available to residents who could not drive or did not own their own cars.
“It took four days to begin a large-scale evacuation of people stranded in the Superdome stadium and to bring in significant amounts of food and water to an American city easily accessible by motorway,” the Observer notes. “Relief agencies took half that time to reach Indonesia after the Boxing Day tsunami. “
Although the delay was not entirely the fault of the Bush Administration, Brown’s complacency clearly didn’t help. And his bumbling statements after the hurricane struck have not inspired confidence.
This is not the time to give a weak performer the benefit of the doubt. The FEMA director’s role in the ongoing recovery effort is too important to be entrusted to a clueless political hack with such poor judgment.
Rather than praise Michael Brown, Bush should fire him.
An aerial view of flooded school buses in a lot, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005, in New Orleans, LA. The flood is a result of Hurricane Katrina that passed through the area last Monday.
Geroge Bush bears full responsibility for the failure of his response team. He was SLOW to arrive on the site; slow to assess the enormity of the disaster and SLOW to provide necessary resources for the hurricane’s aftermath. A top to bottom review of his administration and staff is in order – or he is more a LAME DUCK than he already is.
Brendan Loy has a superb post about Brown’s failure to anticipate the enormity of Katrina (hat tip: Glenn Reynolds):
No one — NO ONE — who knows anything about New Orleans’s geography and topography and levee system would ever have thought for a single moment on Saturday and Sunday that Katrina, if it followed the predicted path, was going to be a “typical hurricane situation.” Jesus Christ!! For how many years now has this article been out there?!? And this one? And many more like them? Did Michael Brown never read them? Was he not familiar with the science? Was FEMA’s director unaware of what has been acknowledged for many years as the #1 most serious natural disaster threat in all of America?!?
A few days ago, Newt Gingrich had it right.
So….. who benefits politically from this Bush Administration failure: Rudy Giuliani.
Update #1
An Angry ‘Times-Picayune’ Calls for Firing of FEMA Chief and Others in Open Letter to President On Sunday
The text of the editorial:
We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, “What is not working, we’re going to make it right.”
Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.
Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It’s accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.
How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.
Despite the city’s multiple points of entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.
Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.
Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a “Today” show story Friday morning.
Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.
We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame.
Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don’t know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city’s death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.
It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?
State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: “Buses! And gas!” Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.
In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, “We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day.”
Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.
Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, “You’re doing a heck of a job.”
That’s unbelievable.
There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.
We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We’re no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.
No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn’t be reached.
Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.
When you do, we will be the first to applaud.
Stay Tuned…..
Update #2
ABC News Poll: Bush Not Taking Brunt of Katrina Criticism
Americans are broadly critical of government preparedness in the Hurricane Katrina disaster — but far fewer take George W. Bush personally to task for the problems, and public anger about the response is less widespread than some critics would suggest.
In an event that clearly has gripped the nation — 91 percent of Americans are paying close attention — hopefulness far outweighs discontent about the slow-starting rescue. And as in so many politically charged issues in this country, partisanship holds great sway in views of the president’s performance.
The most critical views cross jurisdictions: Two-thirds in this ABC News/Washington Post poll say the federal government should have been better prepared to deal with a storm this size, and three-quarters say state and local governments in the affected areas likewise were insufficiently prepared.
Other evaluations are divided. Forty-six percent of Americans approve of Bush’s handling of the crisis, while 47 percent disapprove. That compares poorly with Bush’s 91 percent approval rating for his performance in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but it’s far from the broad discontent expressed by critics of the initial days of the hurricane response. (It also almost exactly matches Bush’s overall job approval rating, 45 percent, in an ABC/Post poll a week ago.)
Similarly, 48 percent give a positive rating to the federal government’s response overall, compared with 51 percent who rate it negatively — another split view, not a broadly critical one.
Technorati Tags: Hurricane Katrina, Michael Brown, George Bush, Rudy Giuliani, Ray Nagin, Kathleen Blanco, flood aid
Country singers Faith Hill and Tim McGraw hold their awards for best country collaboration backstage at the 48th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles February 8, 2006.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff (C) speaks to reporters, as U.S. Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen (R) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director Michael Brown look on, at FEMA’s Hurricane Katrina media center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana September 9, 2005. Brown, the embattled director of FEMA, is resigning, a senior homeland security official said September 12, 2005.
US Senator Hillary Clinton, seen here in June 2005, fueled the political debate over Hurricane Katrina, insisting on an independent inquiry into the federal response and sharply rejecting President George W. Bush’s bid to lead the probe himself.
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