Head of FEMA was fired from his last job (organizing horse shows)

He "exaggerated" his resume. He claims that he was "assistant city manager" in charge of emergency response. He was actually an intern...for the city manager. ~D I've read the comments of the city manager. He had nice things to say about Brown, but said that was an intern, not an assistant city manager and that nobody reported to Brown.

I believe he was selected because the Coast Guard is acknowledged by all as having done a fine job. They were on the scene early (since they prepared and staged properly.) Since they have maritime authority for rescue, I don't think they faced much in the way of artificial barriers (real or imagined.)

There is talk of appointing a "hurricane czar." I'm not opposed to it, but it is too late to do that much good. This should have been done before the hurricane struck land if it was going to be much more than cosmetic.

One problem my wife is running into is that there is no national system for tracking folks. They might be recorded going into a shelter, but when they leave it is not recorded, nor are their whereabouts. There is not a national registry so that folks can link up, find relatives etc. Mass friggin' chaos at the Federal level and it is preventing help from being provided efficiently where it is needed. There is no real national response plan for anything big like this, nor has there been any leadership emerge to really organize one.

Right now the efforts are done at very small scale. Folks that have housing drive up, ask who wants to go with them, and they leave. The local communities and churches are working with individual families to help them get into a viable state. FEMA has not given instructions on how to handle housing vouchers for those that already had them... There seems to be a lot more concern by Dubya's appointees about potential fraud, than helping victims.

The more I think about it, military generals (ex or reserve) are probably the best people to put in charge at FEMA. When a disaster hits, what is the key training required to cope? Organization, logistics, and leadership, in difficult, unpredictable circumstances. Isn't that what they teach generals these days? Doesn't seem to me to be much difference between a war zone and a disaster zone. In both cases, you need food, supplies, and medical care for large numbers of people.

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Originally Posted by drone

The more I think about it, military generals (ex or reserve) are probably the best people to put in charge at FEMA. When a disaster hits, what is the key training required to cope? Organization, logistics, and leadership, in difficult, unpredictable circumstances. Isn't that what they teach generals these days? Doesn't seem to me to be much difference between a war zone and a disaster zone. In both cases, you need food, supplies, and medical care for large numbers of people.

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Exactly. And who do you really need to respond to damaged infrastructure, reach those in peril, etc? The military.

Anyone else think the words 'Brownie, you're doin' a heck of a job' are going to enter the pantheon of Bush gaffes, right up there with 'mission accomplished' and 'bring it on'?

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Originally Posted by Hurin_Rules

Anyone else think the words 'Brownie, you're doin' a heck of a job' are going to enter the pantheon of Bush gaffes, right up there with 'mission accomplished' and 'bring it on'?

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Yep, should be right up there with those.

Cheney called the efforts so far "very impressive" or something like that. Of course, Cheney is used to committing fraud, just look at the financial shenanigans he pulled at Haliburton.

I think you can point the reason for Thad Allen being put in charge at the Posse Comitatus Act. The Coast Guard is already considered a law enforcment agency. Putting Allen in charge does not in any way violate the Posse Comitatus Act. He can act for the same reason that Gen. Honore couldn't. The media bungled the entire mess when making it seem by their shoddy reporting that Honore was refusing to help with the mandatory evacuation. In fact, he couldn't help. As he stated, that would be law enforcement. Under Federal law, the Posse Comitatus Act, he is prohibited from using federal troops for law enforcement purposes, except in very specific circumstances, such as an Act of Congress. Those circumstances don't apply; so Honore was legally bound to not help with anything resembling law enforcement, such as forced evacuations. Thad Allen is under no such legal restraint, being from the Coast Guard.

National Guard troops can be used but only if they are still under state authority. Once called up for federal military service, they are also restrained under that Act until officially released back to state authority. Even though Honore has state Guard troops under his command at the moment, he also has federal units from the 82nd Airborne and others.

I don't know if this is anything to do with FEMA, but does anyone else think it is odd, this decision to leave the bodies in NO uncollected for so long?

Of course, prioritise rescuing the living, but if you are passing a dead body with a team of police or National Guard, why not stop, bag it and either move it to storage or arrange for it to be moved? Was it really sensible to leave bodies on the fringes of large groups of refugees sheltering in the convention centre? To leave bodies on the roadside or floating in the water?

It seems to contrast starkly with the "leave no one behind" approach you here attributed to the US army in combat zones. Here you have arguably a less pressured situation, plus there's a clear public health issue with leaving corpses to fester in the water. And I'm not convinced there are too many to handle - I suspect the true figure of dead in NO will be a lot less than 10,000.

I was reading an article by a UK journalist contrasting (unfavourably) the rescue and relief effort after Katrina with that after the Tsunami. He said the Thai army were collecting bodies within a couple of hours of the Tsunami.

Maybe it's just another symptom of an under-resourced operation, but it just seems strange to me. To be honest, it smacks of a lack of commitment and determination by the people organising the rescue and relief work.

My understanding was that they didn't want to be transporting dead bodies in the same craft as rescued evacuees. I do believe, recently anyhow, they've been trying police up the bodies a little for later collection though. A grim task, no doubt....

On the bodies thing. Yes, like most of the post storm efforts it shows disorganization. However, there was really no place to put them other than in a heap somewhere. With no morgues or refrigeration it was so far from the norm for handling these things (in the U.S.) that the response appears to have been a sort of paralysis.

The transport was indeed being used for live folks, and was limited enough that pets were not being moved--which creates a big problem for later.

I've always thought the "leave no bodies behind" military mantra was a bit stupid. As far as I'm concerned, if you know I'm dead, I don't want you risking your neck to grab my corpse. The last thing I want happening is somebody else getting killed or maimed for my lifeless shell. Likewise, if you're alive, I'll stick my neck out for you and do whatever I can, but once you are gone...well, I'm not Jesus so don't be expecting miracles.

There has been some very bizarre "compartmentalizing" of tasks like body collection.

This whole effort shows our system flat out doesn't work once you reach a truly large scale disaster. Scrap the whole damned thing ("national response plan") and start over. Put together a group of professionals to figure out how to handle these kind of emergencies. Rewrite the laws if needed to allow a working system. First, identify the system that is needed, THEN rewrite the laws, rather than trying to make the system fit laws that really aren't meant to handle these situations.

I don't know if the story is true or not, because I haven't researched it; but CNN made a little tiny mention of FEMA not yet signing the contract with the third party company they've brought in to collect and deal with the dead bodies, getting them to the morgue for ID, etc. I don't know whether it's just typical FEMA (or government in general) red tape, or some sort of dispute over compensation that is the reason for the delay; but CNN seemed to think that this was the reason. Does anyone know if Halliburton has a body collection subsidiary? ~;)

And now Brown is gone. Resigned, not fired (but probably with a gun to his head...).
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/12/kat...act/index.html