Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Hurricane, part two...
Now onto the more topical discussion of the "failures" of our government and what else went wrong in New Orleans. I waited a week to get into this so I could hopefully let my high emotions peter out a bit and try to deal more in the facts as we understand them at this point. As an editorial note I should state that thought I am an independent, I do skew in many cases more toward the right, as I'm sure will be apparent in some of my analysis. Also, I will be adding links and corrections into this post as they become available/apparent.
On to the timeline:
Friday, August 26th
-Katrina passes over south Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico, re-intensifying into a hurricane
-Gov. Blanco declares a state of emergency in Louisiana
Saturday, August 27th
-Katrina continues to intensify and move along its west/northwest track towards New Orleans
-Pres. Bush declares a state of emergency exists in Louisiana retroactive to the 26th, authorizing FEMA to coordinate all disaster relief efforts
-Mayor Nagin and Gov. Blanco leave a voluntary evacuation order in place overnight
Sunday, August 28th
-in the overnight hours, Katrina has jumped from a category two to a category five storm with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph and pressure of 902mb, on a direct path to New Orleans
-Mayor Nagin changes to a mandatory evacuation order for New Orleans in the early morning
Monday, August 29th
-Katrina begins its push onshore as a category four storm, but takes a slight jog to the east, moving the eye east of New Orleans, sparing the city the worst of the hurricane initially
-Pres. Bush declares a major disaster exists in the affected states, freeing up more federal resources to be deployed
-At some point late in the evening, the 17th street canal levee is breached and Lake Pontchartrain begins to flood the eastern part of New Orleans
Tuesday, August 30th
-Katrina has moved out of Mississippi by mid-morning but flooding from breached levees continues in New Orleans, most notable the 17th street canal levee
Wednesday, August 31st
-New Orleans is declared an incident of national signficance by the Department of Homeland Security, clearing the way for rapid deployment of all federal resources to the area
-Evacuation of the Superdome begins in the evening and continues into the overnight hours
-Water stops rising as levels inside that part of the city are now equal to Lake Pontchartrain
Thursday, September 1st
-After a brief interruption due to security concerns in the morning, the Superdome evacuation continues throughout the day
-Crews begin repairing the levee breach at the 17th street canal
Friday, September 2nd
-A large convoy enters New Orleans in the morning, fanning out to the Superdome and the beleaguered Convention Center
-the Superdome evacuation is larely completed as well as evacuation of the Convention Center in the single largest effort ever of its kind on American soil
Analysis:
My initial reaction to Gov. Blanco of Louisiana was not positive. In the press conferences prior to and directly after the hurricane, she seemed overwhelmed and leaning heavily on the directions of those around her. That first impression seems to be borne out by the stories that are starting to come out now. It is apparently at the suggestion of President Bush late on Saturday during a phone conversation that she finally decides to make evacuation mandatory.
When she declares a state of emergency in Louisiana on Friday and then turns to the federal government to activate their relief efforts, the state has not completed critical parts of its own emergency response plan. With the state under a voluntary evacuation, the following steps are required:
1. Activate EOC and prepare for 24-hour operations.
2. Put State Departments and the ARC on standby alert in accordance with OEP Implementing Procedures.
3. Put National Guard units on standby alert.
4. Call all nursing homes and other custodial care organizations in the risk areas to insure that they are prepared to evacuate their residents.
5. Alert FEMA of the situation and advise that the State may need Federal assistance.
6. Establish communications with risk area parish EOCs and test all communications means, including conference call procedures.
7. Prepare a proclamation of emergency for the State so that, when needed, State resources can be mobilized to support risk area evacuation and host area sheltering operations.
Furthermore, the local parishes are to prepare transportation services to be implemented as needed and announce the location of staging areas from which people lacking their own means of transportation will be evacuated. The state is required to aid the parishes with any of these principles that they cannot meet.
When the order is switched to mandatory, the following standards go into effect for the parishes:
1. Coordinate evacuation orders with State and other risk parishes.
2. Instruct persons living in designated evacuation zones to leave.
3. Impose traffic control to funnel persons to designated evacuation routes.
4. Designate staging areas and other facilities as last resort refuges. People at these locations who cannot be evacuated in time to avoid the storm will remain and take refuge in the designated buildings.
5. Assist persons with mobility limitations to find last resort refuge. Mobilize all transportation resources and request assistance from the state as needed.
6. Continue to update EAS and news media with evacuation information at two-hour intervals.
Following are the state's guidelines:
1. Continue 24-hour EOC operations.
2. Consult with risk area parishes to finalize mandatory 01/00 III-6 evacuation orders.
3. Implement mandatory evacuation traffic controls. Convert specified limited access routes to one-way outbound operations. Control main evacuation routes with State resources.
4. Direct the evacuation and shelter of persons having mobility limitations, including persons in nursing homes, hospitals, group homes and non-institutionalized persons.
5. Keep neighboring states informed of status and traffic control decisions.
6. Keep EAS evacuation and shelter information updated on a two-hour basis, or more frequently if information is available on a timelier basis.
7. Keep media informed and updated on evacuation and shelter information.
All of this information is directly out of the Louisiana state emergency response plans which can be found at the following links:
Louisiana State Emergency Operations Plan - 2005
Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering Plan
Southwest Louisiana Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering Plan
Shelter Plan
I highlighted in red those directives which I found to be most significant to saving lives prior to a storm. The directive in blue is highlighted to illustrate another point on which the state failed to follow through on its responsibility. And the italicized directive in the first section also illustrates the failure of state follow through.
The picture that emerges out of these details is that the state started down its emergency response but then failed to act on its most important points. The government, at all levels, knew well in advance that if New Orleans needed to be evacuated, there would be nearly one hundred thousand residents who would lack the capability to evacuate by their own means. This is why the state had staging areas designated, so that these residents could travel to these areas where they could then get transportation out of the area to shelters elsewhere. The Superdome is one of these locations. However, by delaying a mandatory evacuation order, the governor cost the state about eighteen to twenty four hours more time that could have been used to get people out. What's even more amazing, is that with all those thousands of people standing outside the Superdome to get checked in to the shelter on Sunday, no one thought to just start pulling buses up and getting them out. Instead, the state put them into a corral where they could be as safe as possible, without providing food, water or other material. The Superdome was not meant to be a shelter, it was meant to be a last refuge. A place where the few who were not able to be evacuated in time could ride out the storm.
The pictures have started to show up in the general media. Photos of parish school buses underwater, photos of the city's transit buses in the depot underwater, and yet, no one has yet stepped forward to explain why these resources weren't used to get at least twenty or thirty thousand citizens out before the storm hit. Approximately five hundred and thirty five buses at last count that were left sitting, nearly half of which are located in a depot just one mile from the Superdome. I'd like to repeat that for you, nearly one half of which are located one mile from the Superdome. Hospitals were not evacuated prior to the storm, even though it is explicitly stated in the response plan that they should be among the first taken out of harm's way.
Now we can start to move onto FEMA. There seems to me a great misconception in the general public and in the media about what exactly it is FEMA does. It is not a federal organization that provides the material for assistance in times of disaster. Rather, FEMA is a coordinating agency that provides the link between the state and federal government to fulfill requests for materials that the state cannot provide itself. Further, FEMA helps the state to coordinate the resources it does have at its disposal and get them into the necessary areas while also bringing together organizations such as the American Red Cross with the state to provide aid.
Details are now beginning to emerge that once again, it was the lack of direction from the state of Louisiana that prevented some of the pre-coordinated response from getting to the people in the city of New Orleans. The American Red Cross has been, and continues to be, prevented from entering the city of New Orleans to provide aid. Some aid was provided to those residents stuck at the Superdome and Convention Center, however. But it seems that because the national guard, under the direction of the state, would not allow relief organizations into the city, vast amounts of prepositioned relief could not be brought to bear.
I do want to point out, though, that I am not completely excusing FEMA from any responsibility in the insane delays of getting help to people. FEMA is now a part of a broad new agency in the Department of Homeland Security. The creation of this department has added several new layers of beauracracy that only serve to slow down response in situations like this. Several instances of this have occurred in the post-Katrina aftermath. In Hattiesburg, Mississippi, FEMA officials delayed the release of needed ice and water from a warehouse because they had not yet received a phone call from the appropriate official in Washington.
No effort of this magnitude can be served well by having so many layers of clearance to get through. Here is where I find my greatest fault with FEMA director Mike Brown and Secretary Mike Chertoff of Homeland Security. In situations such as these, it is the mark of clear leadership to cut through these kinds of delays and red tape to streamline the recovery effort. And only now, after so many days of missteps, are those streamlines beginning to be put into place. If the state and federal governments are at odds in working together, then a good leader will find the optimum solution to working around those impasses. It seems quite clear that those at the federal level are having as much trouble as the state officials in moving beyond the turf war and on to helping out the people.
I will address more in a third post to come...
On to the timeline:
Friday, August 26th
-Katrina passes over south Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico, re-intensifying into a hurricane
-Gov. Blanco declares a state of emergency in Louisiana
Saturday, August 27th
-Katrina continues to intensify and move along its west/northwest track towards New Orleans
-Pres. Bush declares a state of emergency exists in Louisiana retroactive to the 26th, authorizing FEMA to coordinate all disaster relief efforts
-Mayor Nagin and Gov. Blanco leave a voluntary evacuation order in place overnight
Sunday, August 28th
-in the overnight hours, Katrina has jumped from a category two to a category five storm with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph and pressure of 902mb, on a direct path to New Orleans
-Mayor Nagin changes to a mandatory evacuation order for New Orleans in the early morning
Monday, August 29th
-Katrina begins its push onshore as a category four storm, but takes a slight jog to the east, moving the eye east of New Orleans, sparing the city the worst of the hurricane initially
-Pres. Bush declares a major disaster exists in the affected states, freeing up more federal resources to be deployed
-At some point late in the evening, the 17th street canal levee is breached and Lake Pontchartrain begins to flood the eastern part of New Orleans
Tuesday, August 30th
-Katrina has moved out of Mississippi by mid-morning but flooding from breached levees continues in New Orleans, most notable the 17th street canal levee
Wednesday, August 31st
-New Orleans is declared an incident of national signficance by the Department of Homeland Security, clearing the way for rapid deployment of all federal resources to the area
-Evacuation of the Superdome begins in the evening and continues into the overnight hours
-Water stops rising as levels inside that part of the city are now equal to Lake Pontchartrain
Thursday, September 1st
-After a brief interruption due to security concerns in the morning, the Superdome evacuation continues throughout the day
-Crews begin repairing the levee breach at the 17th street canal
Friday, September 2nd
-A large convoy enters New Orleans in the morning, fanning out to the Superdome and the beleaguered Convention Center
-the Superdome evacuation is larely completed as well as evacuation of the Convention Center in the single largest effort ever of its kind on American soil
*********
Analysis:
My initial reaction to Gov. Blanco of Louisiana was not positive. In the press conferences prior to and directly after the hurricane, she seemed overwhelmed and leaning heavily on the directions of those around her. That first impression seems to be borne out by the stories that are starting to come out now. It is apparently at the suggestion of President Bush late on Saturday during a phone conversation that she finally decides to make evacuation mandatory.
When she declares a state of emergency in Louisiana on Friday and then turns to the federal government to activate their relief efforts, the state has not completed critical parts of its own emergency response plan. With the state under a voluntary evacuation, the following steps are required:
1. Activate EOC and prepare for 24-hour operations.
2. Put State Departments and the ARC on standby alert in accordance with OEP Implementing Procedures.
3. Put National Guard units on standby alert.
4. Call all nursing homes and other custodial care organizations in the risk areas to insure that they are prepared to evacuate their residents.
5. Alert FEMA of the situation and advise that the State may need Federal assistance.
6. Establish communications with risk area parish EOCs and test all communications means, including conference call procedures.
7. Prepare a proclamation of emergency for the State so that, when needed, State resources can be mobilized to support risk area evacuation and host area sheltering operations.
Furthermore, the local parishes are to prepare transportation services to be implemented as needed and announce the location of staging areas from which people lacking their own means of transportation will be evacuated. The state is required to aid the parishes with any of these principles that they cannot meet.
When the order is switched to mandatory, the following standards go into effect for the parishes:
1. Coordinate evacuation orders with State and other risk parishes.
2. Instruct persons living in designated evacuation zones to leave.
3. Impose traffic control to funnel persons to designated evacuation routes.
4. Designate staging areas and other facilities as last resort refuges. People at these locations who cannot be evacuated in time to avoid the storm will remain and take refuge in the designated buildings.
5. Assist persons with mobility limitations to find last resort refuge. Mobilize all transportation resources and request assistance from the state as needed.
6. Continue to update EAS and news media with evacuation information at two-hour intervals.
Following are the state's guidelines:
1. Continue 24-hour EOC operations.
2. Consult with risk area parishes to finalize mandatory 01/00 III-6 evacuation orders.
3. Implement mandatory evacuation traffic controls. Convert specified limited access routes to one-way outbound operations. Control main evacuation routes with State resources.
4. Direct the evacuation and shelter of persons having mobility limitations, including persons in nursing homes, hospitals, group homes and non-institutionalized persons.
5. Keep neighboring states informed of status and traffic control decisions.
6. Keep EAS evacuation and shelter information updated on a two-hour basis, or more frequently if information is available on a timelier basis.
7. Keep media informed and updated on evacuation and shelter information.
All of this information is directly out of the Louisiana state emergency response plans which can be found at the following links:
Louisiana State Emergency Operations Plan - 2005
Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering Plan
Southwest Louisiana Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering Plan
Shelter Plan
I highlighted in red those directives which I found to be most significant to saving lives prior to a storm. The directive in blue is highlighted to illustrate another point on which the state failed to follow through on its responsibility. And the italicized directive in the first section also illustrates the failure of state follow through.
The picture that emerges out of these details is that the state started down its emergency response but then failed to act on its most important points. The government, at all levels, knew well in advance that if New Orleans needed to be evacuated, there would be nearly one hundred thousand residents who would lack the capability to evacuate by their own means. This is why the state had staging areas designated, so that these residents could travel to these areas where they could then get transportation out of the area to shelters elsewhere. The Superdome is one of these locations. However, by delaying a mandatory evacuation order, the governor cost the state about eighteen to twenty four hours more time that could have been used to get people out. What's even more amazing, is that with all those thousands of people standing outside the Superdome to get checked in to the shelter on Sunday, no one thought to just start pulling buses up and getting them out. Instead, the state put them into a corral where they could be as safe as possible, without providing food, water or other material. The Superdome was not meant to be a shelter, it was meant to be a last refuge. A place where the few who were not able to be evacuated in time could ride out the storm.
The pictures have started to show up in the general media. Photos of parish school buses underwater, photos of the city's transit buses in the depot underwater, and yet, no one has yet stepped forward to explain why these resources weren't used to get at least twenty or thirty thousand citizens out before the storm hit. Approximately five hundred and thirty five buses at last count that were left sitting, nearly half of which are located in a depot just one mile from the Superdome. I'd like to repeat that for you, nearly one half of which are located one mile from the Superdome. Hospitals were not evacuated prior to the storm, even though it is explicitly stated in the response plan that they should be among the first taken out of harm's way.
Now we can start to move onto FEMA. There seems to me a great misconception in the general public and in the media about what exactly it is FEMA does. It is not a federal organization that provides the material for assistance in times of disaster. Rather, FEMA is a coordinating agency that provides the link between the state and federal government to fulfill requests for materials that the state cannot provide itself. Further, FEMA helps the state to coordinate the resources it does have at its disposal and get them into the necessary areas while also bringing together organizations such as the American Red Cross with the state to provide aid.
Details are now beginning to emerge that once again, it was the lack of direction from the state of Louisiana that prevented some of the pre-coordinated response from getting to the people in the city of New Orleans. The American Red Cross has been, and continues to be, prevented from entering the city of New Orleans to provide aid. Some aid was provided to those residents stuck at the Superdome and Convention Center, however. But it seems that because the national guard, under the direction of the state, would not allow relief organizations into the city, vast amounts of prepositioned relief could not be brought to bear.
I do want to point out, though, that I am not completely excusing FEMA from any responsibility in the insane delays of getting help to people. FEMA is now a part of a broad new agency in the Department of Homeland Security. The creation of this department has added several new layers of beauracracy that only serve to slow down response in situations like this. Several instances of this have occurred in the post-Katrina aftermath. In Hattiesburg, Mississippi, FEMA officials delayed the release of needed ice and water from a warehouse because they had not yet received a phone call from the appropriate official in Washington.
No effort of this magnitude can be served well by having so many layers of clearance to get through. Here is where I find my greatest fault with FEMA director Mike Brown and Secretary Mike Chertoff of Homeland Security. In situations such as these, it is the mark of clear leadership to cut through these kinds of delays and red tape to streamline the recovery effort. And only now, after so many days of missteps, are those streamlines beginning to be put into place. If the state and federal governments are at odds in working together, then a good leader will find the optimum solution to working around those impasses. It seems quite clear that those at the federal level are having as much trouble as the state officials in moving beyond the turf war and on to helping out the people.
I will address more in a third post to come...
