Cliff Notes on Katrina

For those still tracking "Who shot John":

• Reason's Jeff Taylor summarizes how Louisiana and New Orleans abandoned their emergency plans.



• Streiff at RedState.Org looks into limitations on the National Guard.



• Government-centric newsletter FWC details how State and local officials inexplicably overlooked emergency communications needs--the focus of today's open meeting of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC):

  Chairman Martin announced his intention to create a new Public Safety/Homeland Security Bureau. This new bureau would have responsibility for coordinating public safety, national security, and disaster management activities within the FCC. The FCC must work closely with Congress to complete the proposed reorganization and restructuring of existing functions scattered throughout multiple bureaus and offices within the FCC. When the restructuring is complete, the Public Safety/Homeland Security Bureau would develop policies and rules to promote effective and reliable communications for public safety, national security, and disaster management.

• Brendon Loy recommends establishing uniform criteria so that mandatory evacuation orders could be issued 72 hours before a hurricane. The FCC oversees an "emergency alert system" that was not invoked during the hurricane. The Commission already is re-examining the EAS; I expect the agency to issue a further Notice concentrating on the lessons of Katrina.



• Bush isn't Hitler. FEMA spending since 2000 slightly exceeded budgets under President Clinton; the failed levees already had been upgraded to resist a Category 3 storm--Katrina was a Cat 4. See Solomon for thoughts on the science behind levee breaks.



• After some back and forth, Glenn Reynolds -- a/k/a Instapundit -- seems to have concluded that the principal Katrina-related governmental mistakes were at the State (especially Governor Kathleen Blanco) and City levels. And the various Louisiana emergency plans had well-known flaws, as shown by this WWL-TV news report from September 23, 2004:

  [T]he assumption that the Superdome can withstand hurricane force winds is just that: an assumption. He says more analysis is needed to determine what the Dome can actually withstand because previous wind studies have become somewhat irrelevant since they did not factor in the new high-rise buildings around the Dome.
  
  “They create a wind tunnel effect and that needs to be tested. There were initial studies that indicated 130 miles per hour, but we don’t know,” said [Superdome spokesman Bill] Curl. He adds that the Dome is not impervious to the same elements other areas would be exposed to.
  
  “If we were to lose power, if we were to lose plumbing facilities, if a storm were to hit and create flooding in the area; the Superdome would not be a desirable place to be,” he said.
  
  The American Red Cross admits it would not stay in town for a severe hurricane. Workers would offer supplies and training to the Dome but would then leave to ensure aid for the hurricane’s aftermath.
  
  Kay Wilkins, spokesperson for the American Red Cross, said, “While we’re saying we’re going to move our volunteers and staff out of the risk area into areas where its safer for them to be it doesn’t mean we're not going to be here ahead of time for others.”
  
  Mayor Nagin said the city has more than 80,000 people without transportation access, and when the next hurricane evacuation there will be thousands of people who will not, or cannot, leave, highlighting the city’s urgency of finding the most suitable place for shelter.

• Governor Blanco still is in denial:

  Gov. Kathleen Blanco lashed out at the federal government, accusing it of moving too slowly in recovering the bodies. The dead "deserve more respect than they have received," she said.
  
  However, Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman David Passey said the state asked to take over body recovery last week. "The collection of bodies is not normally a FEMA responsibility," he said.

  And the Blanco-controlled National Guard rebuffed assistance from the Red Cross. Rightpundit rightly says Blanco should resign. So does Paul at Wizbang.



• "Diversity" and the fact (caution: satire) that "our country has a dark record of oppression and discrimination towards orientational minorities," are more important than relief and rescue--1,000 firefighters, assembled by FEMA to assist in New Orleans, were forced to attend a sexual harassment seminar before deployment.



• The MSM's still biased, as demonstrated by this correction in Saturday's Chicago Tribune:

  A story in Friday's Tempo section about Oprah Winfrey's visit to hurricane-stricken New Orleans contained comparisons of Winfrey to President Bush that were unfavorable to Bush. The Tribune failed to disclose that the writer was a contributor to the presidential campaign last year of Bush's opponent, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Tribune standards require disclosure of any such conflict of interest.

Weimar Republic here we come?