The Hits Just Keep On Comin'...
Sure, the feds, particularly FEMA, were slow off the line, but they've gotten all cranked up and help is arriving, and now what we're seeing is the level of competence and organization we all expect and demand from our government, right?
Wellll, not so much.
What does it mean that FEMA, supposedly managing the response to Katrina, keeps showing up in story after story, and always in the most stupid way? They've been charged with cutting communications lines being used by emergency responders, turning back trucks with bottled water, taking many eager volunteers of various levels of training to stay put instead of going into the disaster zone, and forcing trained fire-fighters to sit in Atlanta in a sexual-harassment class instead of in New Orleans saving lives (until W needed to be photographed walking next to some, so they were urgently dispatched.) And now they can't even bother to realize that there is more than one Charleston in this country?
(Worse, I have to think that, if you said "Charleston" to almost anyone outside of West Virginia, most of them would think you meant the lovely antebellum one in South Carolina, where the line of ambulances was wasting its time thanks to FEMA. If you meant the one in West Virginia, you'd probably what to say "Charleston, West Virginia. Of course, it's to avoid problems like this that we have three-letter airport designators.)
Firing Michael Brown isn't nearly enough.
Was the pilot confused? Was the FEMA person notifying doctors to be prepared confused? Was the entire chain of command up to and including the President confused?
I'm sure that all this will be investigated when our President gets around to leading his investigation into what went wrong. That's an announcement to inspire confidence. Remember how quickly he uncovered the leaker of Valerie Plame's name, and slammed that sucker's butt in jail?
Update: In re-reading this, I was struck by another thought. The folks in South Carolina were given a half-hour to be ready for the plane. How long does it take to fly from New Orleans to Charleston, SC? Did FEMA call after the plane was already in the air?
Update: It's hard to keep up. From this weekend:
Wellll, not so much.
A South Carolina health official said his colleagues scrambled Tuesday when FEMA gave only a half-hour notice to prepare for the arrival of a plane carrying as many as 180 evacuees to Charleston.One of the signs of a really good manager is that you seldom see him at work, because his planning, delegation and oversight make things run so smoothly that it seems to happen by itself.
But the plane, instead, landed in Charleston, West Virginia, 400 miles away.
It was not known whether arrangements have been made to care for the evacuees or transport them to the correct destination.
A call seeking comment from FEMA was not immediately returned.
"We called in all the available resources," said Dr. John Simkovich, director of public health for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.
"They responded within 30 minutes, which is phenomenal, to meet the needs of the citizens coming in from Louisiana," he said.
Simkovich said that the agency had described some of the evacuees as needing "some minor treatment ... possibly some major treatment."
"Unfortunately, the plane did not come in," Simkovich said. "There was a mistake in the system, coming out through FEMA, that we did not receive the aircraft this afternoon. It went to Charleston, West Virginia."
A line of buses and ambulances idled behind him at Charleston International Airport as he described what happened.
What does it mean that FEMA, supposedly managing the response to Katrina, keeps showing up in story after story, and always in the most stupid way? They've been charged with cutting communications lines being used by emergency responders, turning back trucks with bottled water, taking many eager volunteers of various levels of training to stay put instead of going into the disaster zone, and forcing trained fire-fighters to sit in Atlanta in a sexual-harassment class instead of in New Orleans saving lives (until W needed to be photographed walking next to some, so they were urgently dispatched.) And now they can't even bother to realize that there is more than one Charleston in this country?
(Worse, I have to think that, if you said "Charleston" to almost anyone outside of West Virginia, most of them would think you meant the lovely antebellum one in South Carolina, where the line of ambulances was wasting its time thanks to FEMA. If you meant the one in West Virginia, you'd probably what to say "Charleston, West Virginia. Of course, it's to avoid problems like this that we have three-letter airport designators.)
Firing Michael Brown isn't nearly enough.
Was the pilot confused? Was the FEMA person notifying doctors to be prepared confused? Was the entire chain of command up to and including the President confused?
I'm sure that all this will be investigated when our President gets around to leading his investigation into what went wrong. That's an announcement to inspire confidence. Remember how quickly he uncovered the leaker of Valerie Plame's name, and slammed that sucker's butt in jail?
Update: In re-reading this, I was struck by another thought. The folks in South Carolina were given a half-hour to be ready for the plane. How long does it take to fly from New Orleans to Charleston, SC? Did FEMA call after the plane was already in the air?
Update: It's hard to keep up. From this weekend:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nine stockpiles of fire-and-rescue equipment strategically placed around the country to be used in the event of a catastrophe still have not been pressed into service in New Orleans, five days after Hurricane Katrina, CNN has learned.
posted by Paul at 9:13 AM |
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