Where's the Outrage?

Times-Picayune

I would like to say that I will come up with something brilliant never before said about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. I wish that were true. There have been endless books investigating the Hurricane Katrina tragedy from multiple angles. David Brinkley’s book, the Great Deluge, maybe the most complete. New Orleans’s own daily newspaper, the Times Picayune, has done a magnificent job at relentlessly chasing down details. Finally, Spike Lee’s documentary, When the Levees Broke, personalizes some of the pain and suffering.

Before Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Georges hit the Gulf Coast in 1998 and narrowly missed New Orleans. This hurricane revealed several problems. City, state and federal officials met in 1999 in order to plan an adequate response. The state of Louisiana formally wrote FEMA and requested a planning exercise in August of 2000. It took four years before the exercise actually happened. In July 2004, Hurricane Pam began. There were over 300 participants in this five-day exercise. Hurricane Pam, by all accounts, was a realistic category three hurricane with sustained winds up to 120 mph. Using simulations from the National Weather Service and the US Army Corps of Engineers, the participants simulated over 20 inches of rain falling in parts of southern Louisiana. The storm surge topped the levees. The simulation assumed that over 300,000 people could not get out of the city in spite of mandatory evacuations. They also assumed that over half million buildings would’ve been destroyed. Over 100,000 people were injured and 60,000 killed. This was serious.

After the simulation, an after action report was filed. The most remarkable thing about this after action report is the number of areas where the letters TBA (to be announced) up here in the report. The report is incomplete. Large responsibilities have not been decided. In football, there is a saying, “You play like you practice.” In this case, the simulation showed huge gaps in our response. In reality, there is huge gaps in our response. In my opinion, any serious look at Katrina must start with a look at Hurricane Pam and the inter-agency problems that Pam revealed.

Tags: Bush Administration, Katrina by ecthompson
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We are all focusing on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast as we remember Hurricane Katrina. Let me start by saying I love NOLA. I love the people and the culture. I started blogging just a couple months before Katrina. I knew that the levees had broken hours before MSN reported it because of discussion boards on the Internet.

I took this picture in 9th ward 3 years ago.

9th ward

So what are the lessons?

• there should be no political considerations when doling out aid
• experts are experts for a reason. They should be in charge of planning and resource management.
• we as Americans do a bad job of planning for future problems. Money was consistently diverted from the levees into projects that would give politicians “more to run on.”
• there is no excuse … We must get help to everyone within 48 hrs. There is no excuse.
• this could happen again.

What are your thoughts? What lessons have you learned?

From HuffPo (written by Janet Napolitano):

We’ve also made tremendous progress since Katrina and Rita in improving our country’s ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from major disasters of all kinds.

An example of this progress is the recovery efforts this summer following the worst flooding in more than a century in Nashville, Tenn. These floods took the lives of more than 30 individuals, devastated communities, and threatened the safety and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of residents. Despite this historic damage, our swift and effective response demonstrated what a difference preparation, coordination between federal, state, and local governments, and the quick deployment of resources to local communities can make.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, played a key role in the government’s response. But as our FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate would be the first to say, preparing for — and responding to — disasters truly is a shared responsibility. While we continue to strengthen and streamline efforts to prepare for disasters at the federal level, citizens, families, communities, faith organizations, and businesses all have an important role to play in our collective response to emergencies.

Tags: Domestic Issues, Katrina by ecthompson
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If you haven’t seen Spike Lee’s new documentary on New Orleans, you haven’t seen a Spike Lee documentary on New Orleans. Yes, I know that his first documentary was great, powerful, in-your-face, raw, truthful, emotional and more. This is all that and more. The HBO special, If God is will and da creek don’t raise, is Lee’s latest look at New Orleans and the Gulf five years after Katrina. This is must-see TV.

So, we placed the blame for the slow government response on Michael Brown, the hapless head of FEMA at the time. New documents appear to show that Michael Chertoff, head of Homeland Security, may have been the man with the deer in the headlights look in his eyes.

The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show.

Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials. Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown had only limited authority to do so until about 36 hours after the storm hit, when Chertoff designated him as the “principal federal official” in charge of the storm.

As thousands of hurricane victims went without food, water and shelter in the days after Katrina’s early morning Aug. 29 landfall, critics assailed Brown for being responsible for delays that might have cost hundreds of lives.

But Chertoff — not Brown — was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government’s blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by President Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.

But according to a memo obtained by Knight Ridder, Chertoff didn’t shift that power to Brown until late afternoon or evening on Aug. 30, about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. That same memo suggests that Chertoff may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department. (more…)

Tags: Katrina by ecthompson
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Wow, now this is huge news.

From MSNBC:

A federal judge has ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers’ failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast in 2005.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval late Wednesday ruled in favor of residents who alleged the Army Corps’ shoddy oversight of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet led to the flooding of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish.

Many in Katrina have argued that Katrina, which struck the region Aug. 29, 2005, was a manmade disaster caused by the Army Corps’ failure to maintain the levee system protecting the city.

Tags: Katrina by ecthompson
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I had the great pleasure of speaking with New Orleans mayoral candidate James Perry. During our conversation, we discuss Obama, charter schools, education, Katrina, levees and more. This is a great interview of a magnificent candidate. You can find out more about James Perry.

Let me know what you think of Mr. Perry. Would you vote for him? Will he help New Orleans?

 

 James Perry talks about improving NOLA for everyone [29:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Domestic Issues, Katrina, Podcasts by ecthompson
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Now this is a great show. I discuss recent events, including the recent rash of trauma.

My guest is Amy Goodman from Democracy Now. We discuss her thoughtful and well-written book, Standing Up to the Madness, Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times.  This really isn’t an interview.  It is a real discussion.  We cover many topics.  Enjoy!

 

 The Errington Thompson Show 4-11-09 [50:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Books, Economy, Katrina, Podcasts by ecthompson
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Old saying — quit while you’re ahead. (Maybe Bush doesn’t know this saying.)

In what was billed as President Bush’s last press conference, he said a lot of amazing things. What really jumped out at me was his defense to Hurricane Katrina. I am guessing that Dana Perino and others in the press office got together with President Bush and worked on his answers to many expected questions. I think this response was rehearsed. The fact that the Coast Guard rescued hundreds, if not thousands, of people off of rooftops does not excuse the fact that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was completely inept. (I readily admit that Louisiana is a completely dysfunctional state. Louisiana and Illinois should probably arm-wrestle for the distinction of being the most corrupt state in the union. The local and state response were completely inadequate, but that does not excuse the federal response.)

The New Orleans Times Picayune has more here and here.

The federal report that was written by a Republican lead Congress. Surprise.

Keith Olbermann takes Bush to the wood shed (see clip).

An Editorial from the Times-Picayune really encapsulates my Outrage over Bush’s comments (here’s a portion):

In his last scheduled press conference, the president vigorously dismissed criticism of the government’s performance.

“Don’t tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed,” the president said, pounding the lectern. “That’s a pretty quick response. . . . Could things have been done better? Absolutely, absolutely. But when I hear people say the federal response was slow, what are they going to say to those chopper drivers or the 30,000 who got pulled off the roof?”

The U.S. Coast Guard, indeed, performed thousands of heroic rescues after the storm. But it’s indisputable that the rest of the federal bureaucracy failed miserably in aiding tens of thousands of people who waited days for water, food and evacuation. Even reports by the White House and Congress faulted the federal performance.

So did President Bush a few days after Katrina. “The results are not acceptable,” the president said Sept. 2, 2005, referring to the federal failure to timely deliver food and medicines to survivors. (more… )

 

 Bush glosses over Katrina: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, Countdown, FEMA, Katrina by ecthompson
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Dr. John has been playing his music forever. His greatest hit is Right Place, Wrong Time. He plays this great tune with Eric Clapton. This is really, really cool.

Tags: Katrina, Music, Race by ecthompson
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I just posted some of my pictures from my recent trip to New Orleans.  I posted them on my facebook page.  I think that this is the address to see them.  Good luck with that.

Tags: Katrina by ecthompson
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In the category of really dumb, Arnold Schwarzenegger said yesterday, “The people are happy. They have everything here.” He said this as he toured Qualcomm stadium.

Doesn’t that sound just like someone else? Someone who is rich and unaware of poverty. Uhmm – Mrs. Bush, after touring the Astrodome complex in Houston on Monday, said: ”What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”

Tags: California Wildfires, Katrina by ecthompson
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I have mixed emotions about this story.  Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the US.  They need a little of everything.  Katrina completely squashed what a calming the Mississippi Gulf Coast had.  Towns like Gulfport and Biloxi were devastated.  In this NBC report, Biloxi, Mississippi is thriving behind the gambling industry.  Old laws which required casinos to be water-based or placed after the hurricane and are to spur economic growth.

I lived in Shreveport — Bossier City, Louisiana during the late 80s and through the mid-90s.  The first casinos were built in the early 90s.  There was a lot of speculation of increased crime.  Fortunately, this did not happen.  Minimum wage workers nearly doubled their salaries by going to work for the casinos instead of some of the other businesses in town.  This caused a relative labor shortage.  The other businesses had to raise their pay in order to get qualified workers.  The casinos were an economic boom to a relatively depressed city.  The lowest wage earners increased their income and got health benefits.

 

 NN - Gulf Coast recovery [3:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Katrina by ecthompson
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Bill Scher and Rick Perlstein, from Campaign for America’s Future, discuss Katrina and the conservative myths.

The blueprint for turning the federal government into the political wing of the Republican party can be found here.

 

 Liberal Oasis Radio [17:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Domestic Issues, Katrina by ecthompson
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It is nice to sit back in our air conditioned comfortable houses, sip Green Tea and point fingers at people in New Orleans who did this or that during Katrina. Everyone would like to think that they would perform heroically under those severe circumstances. The bottom line is that we aren’t as noble and civilized as we would like to think. Basic needs of live were in question. Food. Water, clean, drinkable water. These things were hard to come by that Wednesday after the storm. Basic creature comforts that almost all Americans are used to were gone. There were no showers or baths. There wasn’t a change of clean underwear for some of these folks. So for me to sit back and criticize the life and death decisions that doctors made under these extreme conditions is wrong and hypocritical.

Anna Pou is the New Orleans physician who was charged with 2nd murder. A grand jury found her not guilty on Friday. Newsweek has a very long interview with her. It is excellent. Unfortunately, Dr. Pou’s legal troubles will be continuing. There are many civil lawsuits sitting in the hopper. I’m not sure that she will ever be able to practice again. It is hard if not impossible to get staff privileges once you have been nationally labeled as she has been.

I’m not judging what she did or didn’t do.  I just don’t think that we can apply our normal standards to New Orleans during that time period.

 

 New Orleans MD cleared [2:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Katrina by ecthompson
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Bill Moyers continues to impress me. I will continue to sing his praises. I think that he is the premier thoughtful journalist in America. He is covering issues that others either gloss over or do not cover at all.

This week, he brought Melissa Harris-Lacewell, quickly becoming on of my favorite people, Princeton University Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies, back on the show to discuss Katrina. Bill Moyers adds Mike Tidwell, author of Bayou Farewell in 2003 and Ravaging Tide and environmental activist, to discuss Katrina 2 years later. This is an excellent discussion.

Here’s just a little piece -

BILL MOYERS: What have you learned, the two of you, about politics, American politics from the Katrina disaster?

MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL: Well, I often say that Hurricane Katrina and it’s political aftermath is the 2006 win of the democrats in the mid-term elections. And it–

BILL MOYERS: How so? [Read more →]

 

 BMJ - Katrina, part 1 [13:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 BMJ - Katrina, part 2 [12:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bill Moyers, Katrina by ecthompson
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New Orleans is back in the news. Unfortunately, none of the news is good. First FEMA. FEMA = Disaster. FEMA has been using those great FEMA trailers which as it turns out are releasing toxic levels of formaldehyde. On the other hand, the state of Louisiana turned to James Lee Witt, former FEMA director under Clinton, back when the agency did something besides spend our money. NBC news appears to have uncovered some questionable billing practices by Secretary Witt. The city, the state can’t win for losing.

———-

From MSNBC.com:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will keep selling and donating surplus disaster-relief trailers despite concerns that they may have unhealthy levels of formaldehyde, the agency said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Health Affairs plan to test the air quality in the trailers.

“Potential buyers/recipients will be fully advised of the concerns regarding formaldehyde levels in travel trailers,” FEMA spokesman Aaron Walker said Friday in an e-mail message to The Associated Press. (more…)

 

 Fema [3:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: FEMA, Katrina by ecthompson
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Brian Williams is back in New Orleans.  He is back at the famous convention center.  Sadly outside of the French Quarter nothing much has changed.  New Orleans and the gulf coast need an infusion of federal dollars.  They also need to clean up the Louisiana government.  The corruption and incest has to stop in order to get help to those who need it. So many things during this Bush administration has broken my heart.  Katrina and New Orleans are at the top of my list.

 

 New Orleans [4:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Katrina by ecthompson
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When you think about it, the White House has had nearly an unprecedented run of bad news.  Then again, after 9/11, they had an unprecedented run of legislative victories.  Almost all of their victories were unopposed.  The Patriot Act.  Tax Cuts.  More Tax Cuts.  The authorization for the Iraq war.  No Child left behind.  Almost everything that the Bush administration proposed from September 2001 through August of 2005 was rammed through Congress almost completely and totally unopposed.  Then, Katrina happened.  I should back up, just a half a second, and note that Cindy Sheehan happened in the summer of 2004.  Cindy Sheehan was an interesting phenomenon.  No matter how much she was vilified by the right, the American public didn’t buy it.  She was the beginning of the awakening of the American public to the disaster that is the Bush Administration.

The American public has seen one disaster after another.  The Iraq war.  Hurricane Katrina.  Wage stagnation.  CEO pay inflation.  Walter Reed.  Now the Scooter Libby trial.

 

 CNN - Libby trail impact [1:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Iraq, Katrina, Valerie Plame, Walter Reed by ecthompson
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Anderson Cooper is back in the Big Easy.

 

 AC - Big Easy [2:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Domestic Issues, Katrina by ecthompson
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It is 2007 and time for our year in Review.  This was a really fun show to do.  Our new digital studio still has some issues but they are getting better.  The Godfather of Soul – James Brown has died so all of my out going music is dedicated to him and his life. 

I review the year with Amanda Terkel a researcher and blogger from the Center for American Progress. 

Remember I’m on iTunes and several other podcasting services.

 

 The Errington Thompson Show 1-6-07 [52:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Domestic Issues, Katrina, Podcasts by ecthompson
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Katrina aftermath.  We will continue to find out more and more about what happened in New Orleans immediately after Hurricane Katrina. I’m sure that the picture will be very mixed. 

 

 New Orleans Police and the bridge shooting [4:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Katrina, Legal by ecthompson
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