National Tragedy / National Embarrassment


As you read this take notice of FEMA chief Brown's statements.
They are right out of a "Crap Book".
And Brown was appointed by - - - you guessed it BUSH !

Dave


http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.response/index.html

The big disconnect on New Orleans
The official version; then there's the in-the-trenches version

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Diverging views of a crumbling New Orleans 
emerged Thursday, with statements by some federal officials 
in contradiction with grittier, more desperate views from the streets. 
By late Friday response to those stranded in the city was more visible. 

But the conflicting views on Thursday came within hours, 
sometimes minutes of each of each other, as reflected in 
CNN's transcripts. The speakers include Michael Brown, 
chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, 
Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, 
evacuee Raymond Cooper, CNN correspondents and others. 

Here's what they had to say: 

Conditions in the Convention Center 

FEMA chief Brown: We learned about that (Thursday), so I have 
directed that we have all available resources to get that convention 
center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical 
care that they need. (See video of Brown explaining how news reports 
alerted FEMA to convention center chaos. -- 2:11) 

Mayor Nagin: The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, 
and we are running out of supplies for the 15,000 to 20,000 people. 
(Hear Nagin's angry demand for soldiers. 1:04) 

CNN Producer Kim Segal: It was chaos. There was nobody there, 
nobody in charge. And there was nobody giving even water. 
The children, you should see them, they're all just in tears. 
There are sick people. We saw... people who are dying in front of you. 

Evacuee Raymond Cooper: Sir, you've got about 3,000 people here in this -- 
in the Convention Center right now. They're hungry. Don't have any food. 
We were told two-and-a-half days ago to make our way to the Superdome or 
the Convention Center by our mayor. And which when we got here, 
was no one to tell us what to do, no one to direct us, no authority figure. 

Uncollected corpses 

Brown: That's not been reported to me, so I'm not going to comment. 
Until I actually get a report from my teams that say, "We have bodies 
located here or there," I'm just not going to speculate. 

Segal: We saw one body. A person is in a wheelchair and someone 
had pushed (her) off to the side and draped just like a blanket 
over this person in the wheelchair. And then there is another 
body next to that. There were others they were willing to show us. 
( See CNN report, 'People are dying in front of us' -- 4:36 ) 

Evacuee Cooper: They had a couple of policemen out here, sir, 
about six or seven policemen told me directly, when I went to 
tell them, hey, man, you got bodies in there. You got two old 
ladies that just passed, just had died, people dragging the 
bodies into little corners. One guy -- that's how I found out. 
The guy had actually, hey, man, anybody sleeping over here? 
I'm like, no. He dragged two bodies in there. Now you just -- 
I just found out there was a lady and an old man, 
the lady went to nudge him. He's dead. 

Hospital evacuations 

Brown: I've just learned today that we ... 
are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, 
that those are going very well. 

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta: It's gruesome. I guess that is the best 
word for it. If you think about a hospital, for example, 
the morgue is in the basement, and the basement is completely flooded. 
So you can just imagine the scene down there. But when patients die 
in the hospital, there is no place to put them, so they're in the 
stairwells. It is one of the most unbelievable situations I've 
seen as a doctor, certainly as a journalist as well. There is no 
electricity. There is no water. There's over 200 patients still 
here remaining. ...We found our way in through a chopper and had 
to land at a landing strip and then take a boat. And it is exactly 
... where the boat was traveling where the snipers opened fire 
yesterday, halting all the evacuations. ( Watch the video report 
of corpses stacked in stairwells -- 4:45 ) 

Dr. Matthew Bellew, Charity Hospital: We still have 200 patients 
in this hospital, many of them needing care that they just can't get. 
The conditions are such that it's very dangerous for the patients. 
Just about all the patients in our services had fevers. Our toilets 
are overflowing. They are filled with stool and urine. And the smell, 
if you can imagine, is so bad, you know, many of us had gagging and 
some people even threw up. It's pretty rough.
(Mayor's video: Armed addicts fighting for a fix -- 1:03) 

Violence and civil unrest 

Brown: I've had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the 
word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, 
they're banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning 
tires or whatever. I've had no reports of that. 

CNN's Chris Lawrence: From here and from talking to the police officers, 
they're losing control of the city. We're now standing on the roof of 
one of the police stations. The police officers came by and told us 
in very, very strong terms it wasn't safe to be out on the street. 
(Watch the video report on explosions and gunfire -- 2:12) 

The federal response: 

Brown: Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, 
virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well. 

Homeland Security Director Chertoff: Now, of course, a critical element 
of what we're doing is the process of evacuation and securing New Orleans 
and other areas that are afflicted. And here the Department of Defense 
has performed magnificently, as has the National Guard, in bringing 
enormous resources and capabilities to bear in the areas that are suffering. 

Crowd chanting outside the Convention Center: We want help. 

Nagin: They don't have a clue what's going on down there. 

Phyllis Petrich, a tourist stranded at the Ritz-Carlton: 
They are invisible. We have no idea where they are. We hear 
bits and pieces that the National Guard is around, but where? 
We have not seen them. 

We have not seen FEMA officials. 

We have seen no one. 

Security 

Brown: I actually think the security is pretty darn good. 
There's some really bad people out there that are causing 
some problems, and it seems to me that every time a bad person 
wants to scream of cause a problem, there's somebody there with 
a camera to stick it in their face. 
( See Jack Cafferty's rant on the government's 'bungled' response -- 0:57) 

Chertoff: In addition to local law enforcement, 
we have 2,800 National Guard in New Orleans as we speak 
today. One thousand four hundred additional National Guard 
military police trained soldiers will be arriving every day: 
1,400 today, 1,400 tomorrow and 1,400 the next day. 

Nagin: I continue to hear that troops are on the way,
 but we are still protecting the city with only 1,500 
New Orleans police officers, an additional 300 law 
enforcement personnel, 250 National Guard troops, 
and other military personnel who are primarily focused on evacuation. 

Lawrence: The police are very, very tense right now. 
They're literally riding around, full assault weapons, 
full tactical gear, in pickup trucks. Five, six, seven, 
eight officers. It is a very tense situation here. 



More of Brown's SHIT !

FEMA chief: Victims bear some responsibility

Brown pleased with effort: 'Things are going relatively well'

(CNN) -- The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency 
said Thursday those New Orleans residents who chose not to heed 
warnings to evacuate before Hurricane Katrina bear 
some responsibility for their fates.

Michael Brown also agreed with other public officials that the 
death toll in the city could reach into the thousands.

"Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people 
who did not heed the advance warnings," Brown told CNN.

"I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, 
you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans," he said.

"And to find people still there is just heart-wrenching to me because, 
you know, the mayor did everything he could to get them out of there.

"So, we've got to figure out some way to convince people that 
whenever warnings go out it's for their own good," Brown said. 
"Now, I don't want to second guess why they did that. 
My job now is to get relief to them."

Brown was upbeat in his assessment of the relief effort so far, 
ticking off a list of accomplishments: more than 30,000 National Guard 
troops will be in the city within three days, the hospitals are 
being evacuated and search and rescue missions are continuing. 
(See video of National Guard efforts to rein in violence -- 3:14)

"Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans -- 
virtually a city that has been destroyed -- that things are going 
relatively well," Brown said.

Nevertheless, he said he could "empathize 
with those in miserable conditions."

Asked later on CNN how he could blame the victims, many of whom 
could not flee the storm because they had no transportation or 
were too frail to evacuate on their own, Brown said he was 
not blaming anyone.

"Now is not the time to be blaming," Brown said. 
"Now is the time to recognize that whether they chose 
to evacuate or chose not to evacuate, we have to help them."

Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, whose father 
was a longtime New Orleans mayor, said there was "plenty 
of blame to go around," citing underinvestement by federal 
authorities over many years "despite pleas and warnings by officials."

Earlier on CNN, Brown was asked why authorities had not 
prepared for just such a catastrophe -- given that the levees 
were designed to withstand only a Category 3 hurricane and 
Katrina was stronger than that.

"Government officials and engineers will debate that and 
figure that out," he replied. "Right now, I'm trying to 
focus on saving lives. I think we should have that debate, 
but at an appropriate time."

Brown said Katrina was unlike other hurricanes in which the 
magnitude of the disaster typically subsides after the 
initial blow. That was not the case Monday, when the 
Category 4 storm blew ashore.

"What we had in New Orleans is a growing disaster: 
The hurricane hit, that was one disaster; then the levees broke, 
that was another disaster; then the floods came; 
that became a third disaster."

Brown said he had to be careful about getting rescue 
teams to the site earlier.

"Otherwise, we would have faced an even higher death toll," he said.