Take a look at this
excellent post from Rhodent, full of first-hand hurricane experience. Lots of good points there.
But I'm going to disagree with two ;-)
First, I think that we've seen colossal failures at all levels of government. Congress should have appropriated the money to strengthen the levees years ago, when New Orleans officials first asked for it. The local authorities should have provided transportation out for people. The federal authorities should have been better positioned to help, and should have had more people on the ground (or at least dropping food from the air) sooner. There's no excuse for the feds saying they can't get food in when private groups could, or for saying they didn't know anybody was in the convention center when it had been on the news for days. There's also no excuse for the Louisiana emergency management services relying on cellphones for communication in a disaster.
Second, I think she's right to say that the "blame game" (fingerpointing) is terrible. But I think that accountability is vital. The disaster is still in progress and lives are still at stake. If relief efforts are being so poorly managed that they are endangering people or prolonging suffering, then we need to remove these poor managers and replace them with good ones immediately. This *is* the time to see if the government is responding well and to do something about it if not. Not 6 months later when it won't make as much difference to victims of the current disaster. When you see a problem, you should respond to it.
Very interesting stuff.
First, a Time
investigation into his resume, including statements released by the White House at the time of his nomination. Many of them turn out to be not quite true. He also was fired from not just the horse association, but a law firm as well.
A
report on NPR's Fresh Air yesterday included an interesting interview with a journalist that has done some work on the topic. Among the interesting quotes from Brown are: that he was never told that this hurricane could be any worse than others (untrue, according to the weather forecaster that briefed him), that FEMA had no way of knowing people were at the convention center in New Orleans until 3 days after the hurricane hit (Ted Koppel asked him, "Don't you have TV? We've been reporting on this for days.")
This guy sounds like a total liar to me. He should be fired immediately, and somebody competant put in charge of this operation.
Comments
Thu, 21.08.2008 02:22
He could recycle it, but first ly, it's much more efficient i n the long term for it not to be sent in the first pla [...]
Thu, 21.08.2008 00:48
Nice one! You've inspired me to do something about these an noying PennySaver catalogues - like you, I hate junk m [...]
Wed, 20.08.2008 22:00
"I will never understand why p eople like yourself like to ma ke mountains out of (making mo untains out of)^n mole h [...]
Wed, 20.08.2008 21:54
I'm not subverting the law; th is usage of it has been explic itly approved and encouraged b y the Supreme Court, and [...]
Wed, 20.08.2008 20:47
How proud you must be, subvert ing an obscure law for your ow n, unrelated ends. I can only guess you're one to ran [...]
Wed, 20.08.2008 20:17
Good on you for sticking it ou t; I must admit I tend to just follow the 'straight to recyc ling' because I tend to [...]
Wed, 20.08.2008 19:29
I will never understand why pe ople like yourself like to mak e mountains out of making moun tains out of mole hills. [...]
Wed, 20.08.2008 19:03
I will never understand why pe ople like yourself like to mak e mountains out of mole hills. Put the paper in the r [...]