This is from the National Response Plan Section III, page 8. Very clear as to who was responsible. These SOB's and politico's got the grants and money and pissed it away. Get this out to all news outlets ASAP. That should shut down DA's like THe Rev. Jesse, and the Bush haters! I do think however that the HS and FEMA should have some heads roll for not making sure NO was ready. My big question now is how many other states are in the same level of denial, certianly not Texas!!
[quote] Governor As a State's chief executive, the Governor is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that State or territory; The Governor:
Is responsible for coordinating State resources to address the full spectrum of actions to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents in an all-hazards context to include terrorism, natural disasters. accidents, and other contingencies;
Under certain emergency conditions, typically has police powers to make, amend. and rescind orders and regulations;
Provides leadership and plays a key role in communicating to the public and in helping people, businesses, and organizations Cope with the consequences of any type of declared emergency within State jurisdiction;
Encourages participation in mutual aid and implements authorities for the State to enter into
mutual aid agreements with other States, tribes, and territories to facilitate resource-sharing;
Is the Commander-in-Chief of State military forces (National Guard when in State Active Duty or Title 32 Status and the authorized State militias); and
Requests Federal assistance when it becomes clear that State or tribal capabilities will be insufficient or have been exceeded or exhausted.
Local Chief Executive Officer A mayor or city or county manager, as a jurisdiction's chief executive, is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that jurisdiction. The Local Chief Executive Officer:
Is responsible for coordinating local resources to address the full spectrum of actions to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents involving all hazards including terrorism, natural disasters, accidents, and other contingencies;
Dependent upon State and local law, has extraordinary powers to suspend local laws and
ordinances, such as to establish a curfew, direct evacuations, and, in coordination with the local
health authority, to order a quarantine;
Provides leadership and plays a key role in communicating to the public, and in helping people, businesses, and organizations cope with the consequences of any type of domestic incident within the jurisdiction;
Negotiates and enters into mutual aid agreements with other jurisdictions to facilitate resource-sharing; and
Requests State and, if necessary, Federal assistance through the Governor of the State when the jurisdiction's capabilities have been exceeded or exhausted.[/quote]
Location: On an Island in the west coast of New England
Posts: 13,133
RE: NATIONAL RESPONSE PLAN
I just heard that there are an estimated 10K people still living, holed up in NO and that they won't leave. It will be interesting to see how the people in charge deal with this one. They said they wouldn't be giving anymore food and water and short of going in there with troops they won't get them out.
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Too busy with fishing to spend much time here.
In response to all the arm-chair quarterbacking being done on the FEMA Chief and not having experience threads and the whos to blame thread I have decided to bring this one back to the top.
First, both parties hold blame, levies were voted on, labeled as pork by both parties. Both parties put far too many political wonks that have little experience in our federal agencies for payback on efforts to elect and fundraising. This leads to a cascade failure of ALL of our agencies, because if the guy or gal in charge is not experienced or cannot be removed because of experience, you cannot remove lower and critical positions that are filled with unqualified personnel. Now that being said, I think that about 40% of our civil servants are qualified, ethical, caring, and professional, but tied up in red tape and interagencey/interjursidiction "turf wars".
Second, MIke Brown WAS a political wonk and should have NEVER been submitted for agency leadership, and should have NEVER been confirmed. That is the purpose of confirmation hearings, not to make political statements, or bear to a particular political line.
Third, ALL states received money and money was then filtered to the cities (mostly the larger cities) to formulate and implement a disaster response/recovery plan. That is why I have brought this one to the top of the discussion. Clearly stated in the National Disaster Plan is Primacy for local officials, first the county or parish, then the Mayor, then the Governor, then the Feds. The Feds back up any or all of these efforts AFTER assistance is requested and the Locals are overwhelmed. The FEMA director is responsible for Communication with effected jursidictions and responding to their needs, prepositioning of relief supplies, and assisting in formation command structure to respond, clearly none of this happened except for prepositioning of relief supplies.. Myopinion is that the Governor of LA did not want to hand any advantage to Pres. Bush, by coming in to "Save the Day", and my hunch is it came from National Democrat leaders, or whe just froze,that is MY OPINION. So there was ineptitude at ALL LEVELS.
I am not happy with our President on this (or the border situation), but not all states are in as bad of shape as LA. In TEXAS, clearly their disaster plan works well, they had in place a plan to respond to a State Disaster, but quickly augmented and implemented the plan to accept evacuees and provide for their needs. The process does work, but it starts at the local level.
The last thing is that this is designed for our country, with State's rights in accordance with our constitution, with that right comes responsibility of providing for the governed. In Texas, clearly, the disaster response would have been much better (again in my opinion), because they did what they were supposed to do with the funding and grants and responsibilities. LA did not. Should be a massive wakeup call for everyone.
In the end what caused this problem is our policical bi-polar disorder and politicaly schitzophrenic activities. We argued about creation in the classroom, gay marriage, Terry Shiavo, etc. ad naseaum, everything except things that we know for sure will happen, and the solution to real problems, and thing and events or real consquence. I place the blame squarely on our political wonks, leaders, party leaders, and political operatives who chose to address only issues that "energise the base" to elect "their guy", and ignore the events and problems both small and large that we can and should solve.
We are to blame as well, because we have allowed ourselves only to listen to information that supports our view, and sometimes our view is very small. Our thought processes are controled although passively, by political operatives and mailing lists that misrepresent issues of local and national importance. It takes events like these to teach us, I only hope we collectively WAKE UP and LEARN, but I doubt it is the case.
1) Bush has to be trusted to name political appointees who are at a minimum BASICALLY qualified. This is his JOB as president. It starts at the time, BUT Congress should have caught it. Still, every time the dems question one of his nominees they are labled OBSTRUCTIONISTS AND PARTISAN HACKS. Maybe it is now apparent that Bush cannot be trusted to appoint qualified people (sans the political ideology) at a minimum. Seems like a real problem to me.
2) Under FEMA resposne (National Emergency) the GOVERNOR is to have control of all activities. Giving up control to Bush is unprecedented, unwarranted, and illegal, unless ACTIVE duty soldiers NOT National Guard are requested. Bush wanted total control before he would release FEMA. Pretty sick ain't it?
1) Bush has to be trusted to name political appointees who are at a minimum BASICALLY qualified. This is his JOB as president. It starts at the time, BUT Congress should have caught it. Still, every time the dems question one of his nominees they are labled OBSTRUCTIONISTS AND PARTISAN HACKS. Maybe it is now apparent that Bush cannot be trusted to appoint qualified people (sans the political ideology) at a minimum. Seems like a real problem to me.
That is precisely what I stated but I leveled equal blame, both parties raised hell about forming a HS dept, both parties voted for and against levee improvement, your comments are strictly one sided. The Republicans were labled as partisian when they questioned Clinton's nominees. This is exactly the problem, partisian bipolar political syndrome (PBPS). It is apparent that the FEMA director was a bad appointment, but to paint ALL his appointee's and his appoint process in totality is totaly partisian on your part and smacks of the PBPS I am talking about. In short, he is not your guy so you critize ALL of his actions. Clearly incorrect.
Quote:
2) Under FEMA resposne (National Emergency) the GOVERNOR is to have control of all activities. Giving up control to Bush is unprecedented, unwarranted, and illegal, unless ACTIVE duty soldiers NOT National Guard are requested. Bush wanted total control before he would release FEMA. Pretty sick ain't it?
Wrong on 2 accounts, active duty armed forces cannot provide law enforcement, only National Guard which is directed by the Govenor and ONLY the Governor. And your statement on "giving up control to Bush" is partisian as well if you would read from page 8 of the NRP I posted on the first of this Thread, and consider your comments you are just wrong. The President cannot take control of the National Guard on US soil without the insurrection act, which could not be enacted under these conditions. and From the NRP I will quote:
Quote:
As a State's chief executive, the Governor is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that State or territory; The Governor:
Is responsible for coordinating State resources to address the full spectrum of actions to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents in an all-hazards context to include terrorism, natural disasters. accidents, and other contingencies.....Is the Commander-in-Chief of State military forces (National Guard when in State Active Duty or Title 32 Status and the authorized State militias); and
Requests Federal assistance when it becomes clear that State or tribal capabilities will be insufficient or have been exceeded or exhausted.
So it is not illegal, unprecedented, or unwarrented, you are just not aware of how the process works, hence your uninformed and partisian comments.
Your problem is you have an ideology bias problem. I wonder why you even post to this. and your last statement;
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Bush wanted total control before he would release FEMA. Pretty sick ain't it?
You can verify that can you. The documents I have read show a clear line of procedure for implementation of the NRP, and the President cannot come in and "take over" nor did he make the type of ultimatium that you suggest. In fact, Governor Blanco was begged by everyone to act, before the storm, the President issued a National State of Emergency for the Gulf States region 2 days before the storm hit, and was begging to get the people evacuated. Hell, even Max Mayfield called the GOvenor twice to get it done, and they did not respond. Most of the incompetence was located in LOCAL ELECTED OFFICIALS, they have jurisdiction, and responsibility, and bore it very poorly. They (State and City) were given a mountian of money for this very purpose. The only thing Bush in this particular crisis did wrong was a) appointing a political wonk Mike Brown, and responding 24 hours too late to take up for the State and City inaction.
I have been on several responses with FEMA. I will post the rules and command decision order later today. I have to go toa football game now. In short though, the governor CAN concede control to the government and the president to get true military forces involved.
So which is it, these 2 are from your posts. You don't seem to know what you are saying, and arguing with yourself to support your ideology in blaming President Bush and FEMA. There is blame all around.
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In short though, the governor CAN concede control to the government and the president to get true military forces involved.
Quote:
Under FEMA resposne (National Emergency) the GOVERNOR is to have control of all activities. Giving up control to Bush is unprecedented, unwarranted, and illegal, unless ACTIVE duty soldiers NOT National Guard are requested.
You are right the Governor can concede, but did not. It can be done under martial law.
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I have been on several responses with FEMA.
I really don't care if you have, your grasp of the situation is tenous at best. I have had to be helped by FEMA in 1993, and am currently training first responders for the NO recovery. Trust me, you don't want to compare resumes with me.
NATIONAL RESPONSE PLAN
