One chilling paragraph pinpoints profound intelectual dishonesty (or bold PR )
which lead to the Katrina disaster.

“In an evacuation, people make decisions on their own
without the need for input from official sources,
says Madhu Beriwal, president and CEO
of Innovative Emergency Management,
Baton Rouge, La. The lesson for
disaster planners, she says, is that a lot
of good can come just by letting people
be people.”

Another shows this thinking is not isolated to New Orleans.

” “Public warning is first and foremost
a social process,” says a report
released earlier this year by James Lee
Witt and Associates reviewing evacuation
plans for the Indian Point nuclear
power station miles north of New
York City and the Millstone nuclear
power plant in Connecticut. ”

Source:
Homeland Protection Professional September 2003
By David Wagman, Contributing Editor

http://www.ieminc.com/Whats_New/Evacuations_reprint.pdf

“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” — George W. Bush, congratulating inept FEMA head Michael Brown, Sept. 2, 2005. In Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, Bush shamelessly posed for political photo-ops with food distribution efforts as a backdrop….

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_09/007042.php

BEHIND THE CURTAIN….George Bush’s photo-op tour of New Orleans yesterday has apparently driven Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu over the edge. Today she blasted FEMA for its feeble response to Hurricane Katrina and Bush for his phony, stage managed promises of action:

I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims — far more efficiently than buses — FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.

But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast — black and white, rich and poor, young and old — deserve far better from their national government.

I’m almost worn out with anger reading about the decimation of FEMA under Bush’s watch; the pathetic lack of response to Katrina from the federal government; the relentless television images of human degradation; and the endless excuses from administration hacks pretending that nobody could have predicted Katrina’s devastation. I realize that it’s no different from what’s been happening in Iraq for the past two years, but Iraq is 8,000 miles away and the truth is that no matter how angry we are at what’s going on there, it’s to some extent an intellectual anger. What’s happening in New Orleans is like a punch in the gut.

What Jon Chait said about Iraq last week is perhaps even truer about New Orleans. The hallmarks of the Bush/Rove governing philosophy — partisan discipline, industry giveaways, and relentless lying — work pretty well as long as you can disguise the results of your policies. When you can’t, it suddenly becomes obvious even to your supporters that the emperor has no clothes. It’s taken two years for a lot of people to realize that about Iraq. It’s taken less than a week to realize it about New Orleans.

UP

There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.

ZDF News reported that the president’s visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of ‘news people’ had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.

This goes beyond stage management. This is criminal.

WHY is LA Gov. Blanco paying James Lee Witt (former FEMA dir.) to assist in hurricane recovery? Witt’s firm was part of the IEM Inc team that came up with the non-existent $500,000 FEMA N.O.-SELA catastrophic hurricane disaster plan. Why pay Witt again for his incompetence?

‘privatizing’ disaster preparedness disaster planning, one gets what one pays for. and IEM Inc. was a disaster for disaster preparedness.

IEM Team to Develop Catastrophic Hurricane Disaster Plan for New Orleans & Southeast Louisiana

June 3 , 2004

http://web.archive.org/web/20041126062052/http://www.ieminc.com/Whats_New/Press_Releases/pressrelease060304_Catastrophic.htm
IEM, Inc., the Baton Rouge-based emergency management and homeland security consultant, will lead the development of a catastrophic hurricane disaster plan for Southeast Louisiana and the City of New Orleans under a more than half a million dollar contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

In making the announcement today on behalf of teaming partners Dewberry, URS Corporation and James Lee Witt Associates, IEM Director of Homeland Security Wayne Thomas explained that the development of a base catastrophic hurricane disaster plan has urgency due to the recent start of the annual hurricane season which runs through November. National weather experts are predicting an above normal Atlantic hurricane season with six to eight hurricanes, of which three could be categorized as major.

The IEM team will complete a functional exercise on a catastrophic hurricane strike in Southeast Louisiana and use results to develop a response and recovery plan. A catastrophic event is one that can overwhelm State, local and private capabilities so quickly that communities could be devastated without Federal assistance and multi-agency planning and preparedness.

Thomas said that the greater New Orleans area is one of the nation’s most vulnerable locations for hurricane landfall.

“Given this area’s vulnerability, unique geographic location and elevation, and troubled escape routes, a plan that facilitates a rapid and effective hurricane response and recovery is critical,” he said. “The IEM team’s approach to catastrophic planning meets the challenges associated with integrating multi-jurisdictional needs and capabilities into an effective plan for addressing catastrophic hurricane strikes, as well as man-made catastrophic events.”

IEM President and CEO Madhu Beriwal is the recipient of a s pecial merit award from the Louisiana Emergency Preparedness Association ( LEPA ) for her work in New Orleans hurricane emergency preparedness.

IEM, Inc. was founded in 1985, and is one of the leading emergency management corporations in the U.S. While some organizations include emergency management as one of many business areas, helping to plan for and manage emergencies is IEM’s core business . IEM’s clients include some of the foremost federal emergency and defense organizations in the U.S., including the Department of Homeland Security/FEMA, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.ieminc.com

Established in 1956, Dewberry is a multidisciplinary planning, engineering, and design firm, employing more than 1,600 individuals. As FEMA’s largest contractor, Dewberry plays a significant role in the national effort to reduce the impact of both natural (flood, fire, earthquake, tropical storm, cyclone, hurricane, tornado, and winter storm) and man-made (hazardous waste, terrorism, etc.) hazards on people, property, and the economy. http://www.dewberry.com

URS Corporation provides planning, engineering, architecture, and applied science to hundreds of government agencies and private industrial and commercial companies worldwide. The company has more than 26,000 employees — the largest Architectural & Engineering firm in the U. S. for the fourth consecutive year.URS has approximately 500 employees in Louisiana. URS has over 30 years of experience in hazard mitigation planning and engineering support work for FEMA and other customers. http://www.urscorp.com

James Lee Witt Associates, LLC, established in 2001 by the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is a leader in public safety and crisis management. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in Atlanta, Chicago and Sacramento, James Lee Witt Associates works with state, local and foreign governments, corporations, hospitals, universities and utilities in conducting vulnerability assessments, after-event audits and reviews, developing all-hazard emergency and continuity of operations planning, as well as with the telecommunications industry on wireless interoperability. http://www.wittassociates.com

Having watched Bush officials, particularly Chertoff, try to pretend this event caught them off guard with no way of anticipating what would happen, my bullshit alert went off. Here’s my take on why they deserve a beating.

“This is a case of neglige…

Chertoff ‘fibbed big time’ in his afternoon speech.

Michael Chertoff is showing that the truth is not in him. In addition to Michael Brown who needs to be given the exit door at FEMA, we as a nation can ill afford a lying deceitful Secretary of Homeland Security as well! Innocents are dead, and more are dying! Incompetence and deceitfulness canNOT be tolerated in such critical positions as the Department of Homeland Security or FEMA!

Chertoff — RESIGN!
Brown — RESIGN!
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/3/145043/1693

http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/theme_home2.jsp

In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. The new Department will also prioritize the important issue of citizen preparedness. Educating America’s families on how best to prepare their homes for a disaster and tips for citizens on how to respond in a crisis will be given special attention at DHS.

Michael Chertoff had “primary responsibility” then on the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

there is a big time issue in the rebuilding to face-

New Orleans being ovehauled from the ground up can become the first net zero usage energy provider via the intraduction of solar and wind sourcing per household.

Solar panels also help to distill water and can even be used to provde hot water in addition to usable electric lighting for flourescents.

If such were there and made field deployable with the mind of such wind conditions it is possible to refocu the consumption driven model in a way that responds inherently to peak power times on a daily and overall strategic basis.

Enough of looting our blood and treasury forwars on energy!

Finally lake P-Train can also be made in the hydroelectric facilities in its vast complex of back channels and even in the lake’s heart the newly developed wave transmission technology that serves in a motor capacity can literally run any neighboring grid from harnessing what energy the water carries as it moves in what we consider a static setting.

My uncle worked the Corps of engineers, he has since departed. To see the legacy of infrastructure he took pride in go neglected by the petulant privilege profile of George W Bush is a slap in the face to the good standing fundamental institutions that have made America great in civil and economic terms.

Sorry for the other strongly worded statement but it had to be said. In no means was it meant to incite, can see why it was not posted.