wrote:
I have noted that a number of comments on the New Orleans situation have focused on the quality of response of federal officials. All of us who well know the skills and abilities of local flood response teams around the country are tearing our hair out (if we have any) over the availability of flood rescue teams who seem to be deployed incompetently by federal overseers. A comment of Slim Ray's however, causes me to comment on local preparedness. I would submit that the overall problems in this case are three:
1) Completely incompetent local government disaster planning and response
2) Poor management by the federal government of flood rescue resources
3) Poor disaster response leadership by the federal government
It is my opinion that the primary fault in this outrageous situation lies with #1. The concept of federal disaster relief is that it is provided when local forces are overwhelmed and that it is provided in support of local forces. This generally presupposes that local governments prepare in meaningful and substantive ways for reasonably anticipatable incidents, and that they train their personnel to respond accordingly. The City of New Orleans appears to have been totally unprepared for the most obviously serious disaster it might face. This is a disaster that had been repeatedly discussed at every level of New Orleans society, from the man on the street to the people at the very top.
Having been part of city-wide disaster planning for the City of San Diego, I am very familiar with the tedious and boring process involved in municipal disaster planning. I am also familiar with the outcome, having sat through innumerable disaster drills across the table from counterparts from the FBI to our grounds maintenance department, and having taken these plans off the shelf when disasters occured. Bottom line: For just about every imaginable disaster, a plan is in place for ever-escalating scenarios. I believe this is the norm for major cities and in fact mandated of them.
In the New Orleans case, a few examples:
1) There should have been a plan in place based on objective criteria to evacuate the city under certain defined circumstances.
That plan should have included ways to get everyone out, including the infirmed and those without transportation. There apparently was not. They seem to have been winging it.
2) There should have been a plan in place to ensure that radio communication was maintained. A variety of well known options exist, so I will not go into the how-to options. This is a critical issue for command and control, but apparently was completely absent, making it impossible to coordinate responders or to even ensure their own safety.
3) The Superdome was apparently selected in advance as an evacuation site, even though it was inadequately (if at all) stocked with supplies, had not been shown to be able to withstand even a Category 4 hurricane, apparently had an inadequate security plan, and was vulnerable, itself, to flooding. This is madness.
There are myriad additional examples, but I find the current antics of the Mayor pointing fingers at the federal government to be an exercise in buck-passing.
I believe we are all fully aware of the ongoing reluctance of the federal government to pre-position flood rescue teams organized under USAR. This appears, in part, to be associated with federal law that prevents expenditures of resources for disaster relief until a disaster has occurred and has been declared. I do not believe that's the only problem. This issue must be addressed for the future. There is no point in all of the expense and training of flood rescue team deployment under USAR unless the teams can deploy in time to make a difference.
Finally, the failure of leadership at the federal level for this particular disaster seems extraordinary. At some point, when it became clear that the local government had melted away like the wicked witch of the west when water was poured upon her, some single point person from the federal government with the authority to make decisions and deploy resources should have taken a very visible charge and acted quickly. That this did not occur will undoubtedly be the subject of much discussion in future.
The point of my post is not really aimed at the federal response, as I believe concerns about that are well aired here. Rather, the point is that just as a city in an earthquake zone must be expected to prepare for an earthquake, a city below sea level must be expected to prepare for flooding. That they did not in any meaningful way is deplorable, and many are dead as a result.
www.lifesaver1.com
In SwiftH2O-News@yahoogroups.com, "Nancy J. Rigg"
wrote:
This was posted on another message board... report from the field...
I am not sure which team this person was with... anyway, a glimpse into what's going on...
Three days of hell was what it was. Temps in the high 90's with high humidity. All great intentions where immediately met with hostility.
First day traveling from Baton Rouge to Gulf Port was hard. We where stopped numerous times by people blocking the road and demanding to be brought out of the area. Or asking for food or water. A few rocks where thrown at the convoy in certain areas. The sound of rocks hitting the van just made my dog pissed and the people inside uneasy.
The dead where ramped the people just trying to get to dry areas sat like rats after a storm drain flood on anything they could keep dry on.
The roads where real bad and we had to boat it then get picked up by others. What made this an unattainable task was COMMUNICATION.
Getting in touch with others without satellite phones where impossible. Seen so much looting that you didn't even take notice after a while. Even if you wanted to you could do nothing about it. There where that many looters.
We came across an apartment building for assisted living adults that had a fire on the upper floors and had to evacuate them. We then had no way of transporting those people. Had to leave them there on the street.
Night fall came and the constant shoots where heard. Some far away Some close. Bravous is trained to turn on to gun fire so it was a sleepless night. We slept outside the trucks to protect ourselves from anything that may have come out of the darkness.
My team was made out of three suburbans, and two 12 pass. vans. We had three sheriffs with small arms and one M-16 for protection. This was not enough for what the nigh had. Fires where seen all over the area at night. Sunrise could not come to early for us. we reported the going ons back to IC and was told it was all isolated incidents. Yeah right.
We where in the field they where back in a nice safe area.
Day two we got into gulf port and the devastation was beyond belief we assisted helio evacs of people and tried to assist any trapped people we came across. I came across an old white man in a second floor room in a house that had diabetes. He was bed ridden. He flipped a little when Bravous went into room when we where checking the house. He threw his bed pan filled with piss at Bravous. Great now I poured my water ration
on him and cleaned him with some saline solution. I had to carry the guy down the stairs. He had #$@% in his pajamas. He cried when they cleaned him up and thanks us and apologized for getting scared when he seen
Bravous. He said he though Bravous was a wild dog and came to feed on him. The Coast Guard fly boys picked him up.
We continued on checking debris and houses for trapped people. All the time people asking us for supplies. information we had no answers to. Everyone wanting help. But help they could do themselves. We where there for the ones that can't help themselves. The trapped, sick, or medical attention people. The people that had no physical problems where told to make it out and head north where trucks with supplies could not get in do the flooding. Got back to the trucks just before sunset. AND FOUND MY PERSONAL DOG BAG MISSING. Bitches stole Bravous' supplies and his my personal #$@%. Lost $1400 bucks in that bag INCLUDING MY CAMERA. Now I have a problem no food for the dog. His water supply his hygiene and medical supplies are gone. This pissed me #$@% off and started looking at these people in a whole new light.
That night we had more of the same #$@%. People coming out of the darkness looking for food and water. I was giving Bravous my food and water so I had nothing to offer. #$@% #$@% saw me feed Bravous a can
of tuna fish and said that animals don't eat before people. I said you want it you take it form him. Just then some gun fire went off real close by.
It was DARK. Didn't know who shot or at what. I tackled the guy and Bravous came in for the bite but he was tied up and could reach the guy.
One of the Chris one of the sheriff officers came and pulled the guy up and separated us. He was pissed but I didn't know if he was armed and was acting irrational enough to warrant his take down. The sheriff patted him down and sent his on his way as Bravous kept drooling for the bite.
Now it is on. About four something AM Bravous lets out a grumble as I lay slightly asleep against the van wheel. Several black guys two with shot guns the rest had side arms came out of the darkness. The Sheriff gave then some water and toilet paper. They asked what food we had and took three jars of peanut butter. And walked off in the darkness. The sheriffs later said we are not going to get into a fire fight that we could not win. Day light came and they decided things are way out of hand and we report back. On the way back we meet up with four Nation guards in a six wheeler. They said they are going to escort us out.
We came across this town that had cars blocking the road. I was in the fourth vehicle looking out at why we stopped. Two of the Guards men got out to move the unoccupied vehicles. No keys so the six wheeler moved
them. As we where pulling away shots hit the six wheeler the second vehicle and the last vehicle. Two of the guards men returned fire shooting high in the air as we floored it out of #$@% THESE PEOPLE.
I am sitting here unarmed nothing to do but lay low. We are in FEMA marked vehicles and #$@% are shooting at us. I want to drive but they won't let me. If I was driving I would run most of #$@% in the street down. I am so pissed at the people down there that I hope they #$@% die.
One thing about other disasters I have seen is that people cam together and helped each other. There where isolated acts of kindness but on the most part what I seen was something out of a war scene. Not sure if this si a southern Black thing but I will not go back and help them. As far as I am concerned let the floating corpse feed #$@%. Let then drink the disease stagnate water and die a slow death.
Those where not people those where something subhuman form the bellows of the earth. Someone wrote on another thread that these people are Suppressed. Yeah I would suppress them with motor fire. I hope our state guys fire on #$@% #$@% them into the swamps where the alligators can eat their asses.
It is going to take me some time to forget what asses those people where. #$@% me and I owe them one.
God bless the militarty boys going in to clean up the rats.
In SwiftH2O-News@yahoogroups.com, "Fred Ray"
wrote:
I recommend everyone take a few minutes to go to the N.O. City web site (amazing that it's still up, looks like an eerie time capsule from last weekend) and check the emergency plan, especially the hurricane evac plan.
http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=36
http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26
"Shelter demand is currently under review by the Shelter Coordinator.
Approximately 100,000 Citizens of New Orleans do not have means of personal transportation. Shelter assessment is an ongoing project of the Office of Emergency Preparedness through the Shelter Coordinator."
So it wasn't a state secret that 100,000 people lacked the means to get out of the city. Yet in spite of the fact that most scenarios called for major flooding, there was no provision for them to leave. New Orleans does have busses of its own, but for some reason chose not to use them. Most of them are shown here:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050901/480/flpc21109012015
Some trenchant blog commentary about it at:
http://junkyardblog.net/archives/week_2005_08_28.html#004749
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/003488.html
When you've finished that I suggest you read three very good articles about the flood scenario written well before the fact in mainstream journals.
http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/o/nov04/nov04c.html
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/index.html
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00060286-CB58-1315-
8B5883414B7F0000
"Residents who did not have personal transportation were unable to evacuate even if they wanted to. Approximately 120,000 residents (51,000 housing units x 2.4 persons/unit) do not have cars. A proposal made after the evacuation for Hurricane Georges to use public transit buses to assist in their evacuation out of the city was not implemented for Ivan. If Ivan had struck New Orleans directly it is estimated that 40-60,000 residents of the area would have perished." (Laska, "What if Hurricane Ivan Had Not Missed New Orleans?"
So let's remember that as bad as this was, it was by no means the worst case. If the storm had tracked 30 miles further west, it would probably have drowned 10,000 people.
"federal and state governments have estimated that it would take 10 days to rescue all those stranded within the city. No shelters within the city would be free of risk from rising water. "
So we're actually a bit ahead of schedule.
Now I've look through the plan, and most of it looks like boilerplate. I see no provision for rescue, or for bringing in outside resources, or for alternative communications if the normal ones fail. I'd like to see the Louisiana State plan, too. One researcher called this "the paper plan syndrome" i.e. it looks like everthing is taken care of, but only in the most general terms.
Slim
In SwiftH2O-News@yahoogroups.com, "Jim Segerstrom Special
Rescue Services Group" wrote:
Dan,
Along with abut 4000 other EMS folks, I was in New Orleans, evacuating under very trying circumstances--on the ground--Sunday morning. At that juncture the Mayor was--stridently and constantly--DEMANDING that people get out of the city; that the storm was likely to inundate large areas of the city and that the city government was UNPREPARED to deal with it. He made the point, REPEATEDLY, that the Super Dome was a refuge "of last resort." The Mayor knew then that they were screwed, and MUST have been demanding state and Federal help to get ready in the city.
So while Eric Tolbert is not on my Christmas card list I completely agree with his assessment. In one way I am glad I missed the OES conference call on Monday, (I was evacuating FROM New Orleans with several thousand others stranded when the major airlines cancelled all of their flights and flew the planes out empty, for "safety reasons.") If I was there with our teams, (and there was evidently no place in the organization chart for a
tech. spec.) I would simply be in the "fog of war."
Sunday morning while crawling along I 10 I called OES contacts in California and Casey Ping in Texas. Anybody get the word to pre-deploy? We then had at least 30 hours before it hit. Nope, just an alert status. The first swiftwater team to get the "go" was Florida state TF 9, who started moving
Sunday morning, 24 HOURS before landfall. Other teams much closer than California were ready to go and didn't get the call, still haven't in fact.
HOWEVER, all the USAR task forces, "defensive swiftwater rescue only" remember, were loading up and getting ready to go. Yesterday one USAR IST guy told one of the Florida swiftwater teams that they were being converted to ground pounders and water rescue gear they had ordered was being cancelled. "The water mission is over." Hmm, with two months left in the hurricane season and chances for more rain a high probability?
Tim Rogers and I have been POUNDING the tub for FLOOD TRAINING FOR DISASTER MANAGEMENT AND IST TYPES for years. Floods, their phases, and what needs to be dealt with in each phase are ABSOLUTELY predictable. This is one natural disaster we can get ahead of and stay that way. When I teach new agencies I extend the offer to train the chief officers FOR FREE.
But, "too busy," "previous meetings," "budget time," "other committments," are always the answers, inexcusable ones at that. I teach that seminar EVERY YEAR in Florida in February and NEVER get a Florida chief in the course.
Abysmal.
Coming out of New Orleans I saw thousands of utility trucks and convoys of ambulances going in, but narry a boat.
I was training the NOFD and NOPD that weekend. They had a handful of boats.
They activated Saturday a.m., but the fire guys knew they were going to have to borrow lifejackets off the river boats in order to have some sort of PPE.
Personnel at the course were stunned to discover how much preparation was necessary for the third phase of the event, the one they are in now.
But the sad fact of it is, as I cover in my next ART column, James Lee Witt's FEMA has been pulled apart, and the focus was on terrorism, at the cost of domestic disaster preparedness.
Dan, you are there, and I am here, and we out here are only getting spotty reports from what is going on there, rescue-wise.
One report says that USAR has made 350 "rescues." Another that the OES teams from California have made 2400.
They aren't rescues; they are evacuations of many people in extreme circumstances from a flood zone.
Conditions in this phase will worsen as the response improves.
I sent the following "tech spec." suggestions to a couple of management types earlier this a.m.:
1. Keep the cache current. The inflatables may be needed again during extended operations if there is another severe storm.
One Florida Forestry guy ordered stuff for his water rescue unit and thencancelled it!!! "We aren't doing water rescues now."
Short sighted and lack for foreknowledge. Order NOW and keep it coming. I won't be available later.
2. Start thinking about more rigid boats into the area. The inflatables will start going OS, due to punctures and wear. If they continue to use them, they won't be available for REAL swiftwater/flood rescues.
There is an outfit in Alabama that has boats ready for immediate delivery.
3. Consider ordering, NOW, waders for ALL personnel. The dry suits will also start to go OS, and are inappropriate to the environment.
Gortex absorbs contaiminents like mad. I have a good contact with Simms, and we need to thinkabout that NOW.
4. More chain saws, axes, bolt cutters, NOW.
5. Start considering leaving HALF the caches there, and cycling in new people. Otherwise we are going to be caught flat footed here (in CA.)
6. Consider tapping the law side (in CA) for water rescue folks to fill the slots, ala Texas model.
7. Consider bringing in some lightweight regular rafts for neighborhood, shallow water, evacuations.
8. Identify tech. specialists in flood rescue and get them into the Planning sections.
It is clear that the various "incidents" have little or no clue on water issues during a flood.
The sad aspect of all of that is that they will be largely ignored until too late. If you have an opportunity maybe you can get the word where it needs to be.
Jim Segerstrom
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 9:29 PM
Subject: RE: [SwiftH2O-News] Experts blast federal response
Howdy from the relief effort in New Orleans. I have to say quickly that the criticism from the prior administrative staff quoted in this article seems to me....standing in the disaster zone...a bit of sour grapes. All US&R task
forces have been activated and/or are en route to assist in the rescue efforts.
Early press coverage, from what we heard, was showing a weakened storm hitting Louisiana on the east of New Orleans, saving the city from a devistating blow.
Today we brought out several New Orleans Fire fighters who have been working within the city since the storm struck. They describe an initial pass of the storm with minimal damage, however a flooding occurred much after the storm had passed, much of it from broken dikes.
The Federal response has been massive and difficult. Entire access routes have been inundated and were not passable. I can say I was in one of the lead vehicles entering the city boundaries, and that was on the heels
of the storm.
One of Nancy's greatest hopes was recognizes, California task forces were deployed here as water rescue squads - complete with their rescue equipment. Though they were not initially deployed - they are here....
Rooftop and water rescues, as I am sure you have observed on the news, are going on at an tremendous rate. Despite the efforts of a few trouble makers, resources are refusing to stay away and continue to work hard to rescue those that stayed and survived the storm.
Naysayers - still your voice - it is not justified and not warranted.
Respect the efforts of those who are here working hard to save as many lives as possible.
Dan Hudson, SAR Coordinator
Pierce County Sheriff's Department
Plans Chief/WA-TF1
Quoting Fred Ray
I've tried to moderate my comments, but it's not easy. Again I'd suggest you interview Tolbert, who is a veteran of NCEM and Floyd.
Unfortunately when FEMA switched over to DHS, it became a civil defense arm and lost its emphasis on disaster mangement.
Slim
From: "Nancy J. Rigg"
Reply-To: SwiftH2O-News@yahoogroups.com
To: SwiftH20-News
Subject: [SwiftH2O-News] Experts blast federal response
Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 13:57:02 -0700
It sure does seem premature to me to be doing all this finger pointing in the midst of the WORST natural disaster that we've been impacted by indecades if not more than a hundred years.
Nancy
Posted on Thu, Sep. 01, 2005
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/12530585.htm[2]
Experts blast federal response
The war on terror has undercut disaster planning, some said. U.S. officials defended relief efforts.
By Seth Borenstein
Inquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - The federal government so far has been slow in helping the hungry, thirsty and desperate victims of Hurricane Katrina, former top federal, state and local disaster chiefs said yesterday.
The experts, including a former Bush administration disaster-response manager, said that the government was not prepared, had scrimped on storm spending, and had shifted its attention from dealing with natural disasters to the global fight against terrorism.
The agency at the center of the relief effort is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is now part of the Department of Homeland Security.
"What you're seeing is revealing weaknesses in the state, local and federal levels," said Eric Tolbert, who until February was FEMA's chief of disaster response. "All three levels have been weakened. They've been weakened by diversion into terrorism."
In interviews yesterday, several men and women who have led relief efforts after killer hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes over the years chastised current disaster leaders, saying they were not prepared.
Bush administration officials said they were proud of their efforts.
"We are extremely pleased with the response of every element of the federal government," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said during a news conference yesterday in Washington.
The agency has more than 1,700 truckloads of water, meals, tents, generators and other supplies ready to go in, Chertoff said.
Federal health officials have started setting up at least 40 medical shelters.
The Coast Guard reports rescuing more than 1,200 people.
But residents, especially in Biloxi, Miss., said they were not seeing the promised help, and reporters along the Gulf Coast said they saw little visible federal relief efforts, other than search-and-rescue teams.
Some help started arriving yesterday by the truckloads, but not everywhere.
"We're not getting any help yet," said Joe Boney, battalion chief of the Biloxi Fire Department. "We need water. We need ice. I've been told it's coming, but we've got people in shelters who haven't had a drink since the storm."
The slow response to Katrina and poor federal leadership is a replay of 1992's mishandling of Hurricane Andrew, said former FEMA chief of staff Jane Bullock, a 22-year veteran of the agency.
Bullock blamed inexperienced federal leadership. She noted that neither Chertoff nor FEMA director Michael Brown had disaster experience before they were appointed to their jobs.
Budget cuts have not made disaster preparedness any easier.
Last year, FEMA spent $250,000 to conduct an eight-day hurricane drill for a mock killer storm hitting New Orleans. About 250 emergency officials attended. Many of the scenarios now playing out, including a helicopter
evacuation of the Superdome, were discussed in that drill for a fictional storm named Pam.
This year, the group was to design a plan to fix such unresolved problems as evacuating sick and injured people from the Superdome and housing tens of thousands of stranded citizens.
Funding for that planning was cut, said Tolbert, the former FEMA disaster response director.
"A lot of good was done, but it just wasn't finished," said Tolbert, who was the disaster chief for the state of North Carolina. "I don't know if it would have saved more lives. It would have made the response faster.
You might say it would have saved lives."
FEMA was not alone in cutting hurricane spending in New Orleans and the surrounding area.
Federal flood control spending for southeastern Louisiana has been chopped from $69 million in 2001 to $36.5 million in 2005, according to budget documents. Federal hurricane protection for the Lake Pontchartrain vicinity
in the Corps of Engineers' budget dropped from $14.25 million in 2002 to $5.7 million this year.
Both the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper and a local business magazine reported that the effects of the budget cuts at the Corps were severe.
In 2004, the Corps essentially stopped major work on the now-breached levee system that had protected New Orleans from flooding. It was the first such stoppage in 37 years, the Times-Picayune reported.
"It appears that the money has been moved in the President's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay," the Jefferson Parish emergency management chief, Walter
Maestri, told the newspaper.
The Corps' New Orleans office, facing a $71 million cut, also eliminated funds to pay for a study on how to protect the Crescent City from a Category 5 storm, New Orleans City Business reported in June.
Being prepared for a disaster is basic emergency management, disaster experts say.
For example, in the 1990s, in planning for a New Orleans nightmare scenario, the federal government figured it would pre-deploy nearby ships with pumps to remove water from the below-sea-level city and have hospital ships nearby, said James Lee Witt, who was FEMA director under President Bill Clinton.
Federal officials said a hospital ship would leave from Baltimore tomorrow.
"These things need to be planned and prepared for; it just doesn't look like it was," said Witt, a former Arkansas disaster chief who won bipartisan praise on Capitol Hill during his tenure.
A FEMA spokesman, James McIntyre, blamed the devastation in the region for slowing down relief efforts.
Roads were washed out and relief trucks were stopped by state police trying to keep people out of hazardous areas, he said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-------
Contact reporter Seth Borenstein at 202-383-6102 or
sborenstein@k... .
From: "Mark Phillps"
Date: Sat Sep 3, 2005 11:08 pm
Subject: KATRINA / NEW ORLEANS WEB SITES OF INTEREST mphill9929
Offline
Send Email
Katrina Web Sites
I know there are probably housands of sites with infrmatoin and such related to hurricane Katrina. These are some of those I found to be uniquely different.
Mark Phillips
www.psdivermonthly.com
********************
http://sigmund.biz.nyud.net:8090/kat200509012/index.html
Photo diary
http://meta.advection.net/event/adv/evt20050902/0250/
Cam Feed
http://www.nola-intel.org/pictures/
More Photo Diary
http://nowpublic.com/
News, Photos and MISSING PERSON PHOTO GALLERY
http://www.thercg.org/google-weather.html
The Real Truth Magazine
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/KATRINA0000.HTM
The imagery posted on this site is of the Gulf coast of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
From: "Ilan Kelman"
Date: Sat Sep 3, 2005 5:47 pm
Subject: I Must Be Dreaming ilan_kelman
Please, someone, anyone, please, please tell me that the comments below were fabricated, were taken out of context, are false propaganda, are from NeverNeverLand, or appeared on my computer as a result of a virus. The director of FEMA is surely not saying that he did not expect flooding after a hurricane? Louisiana is surely not saying that they never considered the possibility of a New Orleans levee breach? I must be missing something...other than my sanity...
Ilan
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9166531
Michael D. Brown, FEMA's director, offered an emphatic defense of the federal response, saying that his agency prepared for the storm but that the widespread, unexpected flooding kept rescuers out of the city.
[...]
Local officials in Louisiana said the scope of a double whammy – a Category 4 hurricane coupled with a large breach of a levee -- simply overwhelmed them.
"There is never a contingency plan for something like this," said Johnny B. Bradberry, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development.
From: "Fred Ray"
Date: Sat Sep 3, 2005 7:18 pm
Subject: Communications and disorganization slimray19
Two probems always surface in a flood disaster -- lack of communications and bureaucratic infighting and confusion. The Crescent City is no exception. If I were to design a flood excercise the first thing I'd tell everyone is that they couldn't use cel phones or land lines, and their radios only worked line of sight and they couldn't recharge their batteries. Try running a rescue like that -- but that's what's happening.
The other classic problem at this point is that we're throwing people and units into N.O. without much idea of what their capabilities are or what we need to do. As Jim says, spaghetti on the wall. I realize I'm on the outside looking in, but it's very hard to tell who's in charge. Mississipi, although more devastated, appears to be better organized.
Slim
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/02/AR2005090202363.\
html
Bad Communication Hinders Area's Aid Efforts
By Michael Laris and Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 3, 2005; A23
Officials and groups from the Washington area warned yesterday that some of their attempts to help Hurricane Katrina's victims are being slowed or stymied by breakdowns in communication and disorganization among local, state and federal agencies.
The shortfalls have come in the crucial early days of the response to the catastrophe along the Gulf Coast. Among the difficulties:
· Twenty-two Loudoun County sheriff's deputies and six medical personnel who left Thursday for the New Orleans area returned home early yesterday because of poor communication between officials in Louisiana and Virginia that left the team without required approvals. The Loudoun deputies have shelved their mission until the bureaucratic wrangling has been resolved.
"I'm saddened to see that even after 9/11, the system doesn't work any better than this," Loudoun Sheriff Stephen O. Simpson said. "The impression we're left with is that nobody knows what they're doing down there."
· A group of doctors in Prince William County with experience in violence-racked international missions said they told Federal Emergency Management Agency officials Wednesday morning that they were eager to send a
team to hard-hit areas. FEMA passed them to the Red Cross, which said it referred them back to federal health officials. The group and its emergency medical trailer remain in Manassas.
· A Fairfax County search and rescue squad has spent much of the week assigned to an area of Mississippi that was not among the regions most devastated by Katrina. As of Thursday evening, they had found no victims.
Simpson said he turned the Loudoun team back because county officials said they could not insure the team without an official invitation and worried that they would not be reimbursed for their efforts. He said he considered sending the group anyway but was told by a Louisiana state trooper to call off his deputies or risk being turned back at the state line.
The apparent inability to efficiently match far-reaching needs with offers of support has upset those most affected by the flooding and unrest.
"There's been a big foul-up," said Jefferson Parish, La., Sheriff Harry Lee, whose office had urgently requested the help from Loudoun. "It's the same problem we've had since Day One: There's been an unbelievable lack of coordination, . . . it's probably due to the almost nonexistent communication."
Although the deployment from Loudoun remains uncertain, Lee said he has been able to work with Louisiana officials to get help from other sheriff's departments.
Representatives from some Washington area organizations said the bureaucratic confusion is endangering lives.
"There's a breakdown," said Harold Schaitberger, a former Fairfax County firefighter who was driving yesterday through flood-ravaged areas of Louisiana on a mission for the District-based International Association of Firefighters, for which he is president. "We've got firefighters still trapped in New Orleans."
Even though federal officials have established some communication links in the area, firefighters have been left isolated in many cases. "Those communications are not reaching the actual local responders," Schaitberger said.
Others emphasized that some of the problems can be blamed on the sheer scope of the disaster.
"Obviously, there's a lot of confusion and stuff going on, and we just want to help if we're going to be of some service," said Gilbert Irwin, founder of Manassas-based Medical Missionaries. "We're not trying to create any clouds here."
But Irwin said he is eager to take his team to the disaster area and use the experience he's had in such dangerous areas as Haiti. "What you are seeing down there in New Orleans is what you see on a daily basis in Haiti," he said.
There was confusion yesterday over which federal and Red Cross officials Irwin needed to get approvals from, so he waited.
"I'm pulling a big, heavy trailer, and I've got lots of people and whatnot," Irwin said. "We'll go if the authorities say, 'We really need you and we'd like to have you here.' You don't want to compound the situation."
A spokesman for the Fairfax search and rescue squad, Mark Stone, said team members were not frustrated by their deployment in Mississippi, although the damage "was not as significant as some had thought."
"I think we feel just as much as a team player as anybody getting in those areas, so we can at least say it's been done," Stone said.
In the case of the Loudoun group, Simpson said he received a request for help from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Department on Wednesday night and quickly lined up a crew.
But what followed Thursday, he said, was a maddening whirlwind of phone calls, with one federal department passing him off to another, all in an attempt to get the contingent's mission authorized.
Simpson said he was routed through military units and a FEMA representative in Denton, Tex., who told him he needed to talk to FEMA in Baton Rouge, La.-- but could not provide contact information.
"I felt like I talked to everybody but NASA," he said.
By 9 p.m., with his team still in Leesburg, Simpson said, he still did not have an answer. But the desperate scenes on television -- and emotional pleas from his Jefferson Parish sheriff's contacts -- persuaded him to send his team south. He instructed them to go no farther than the Virginia state line, figuring, "Geez, in six hours, we've got to have gotten through all this red tape," he said.
Not so. Ultimately, the warning from Louisiana authorities made him bring the group home.
"I said, 'I'm kind of confused. We just saw your governor on TV putting out this request for help, asking anybody and everybody to come down, and now you're telling me not to come down,' " Simpson said.
He ordered his deputies, who had reached Harrisonburg, to turn around – but not to unpack.
The Loudoun saga took many bureaucratic twists and turns yesterday. At one point, it looked as though the group was headed to Mississippi, but the team remained grounded.
Last night, after relating the tale in an appearance on CNN, Simpson said his phone was ringing nonstop with calls from federal officials saying they would somehow get his team to Louisiana. Simpson said he is hopeful the
journey will restart in the coming days.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
From: "Fred Ray"
Date: Sat Sep 3, 2005 7:20 pm
Subject: More on "unwatering" slimray19
Quote of the day; "Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, the Corps' commander, told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday that Katrina had simply overpowered levees designed 30 years ago with a 99.5 percent chance of enduring for 200
to 300 years: "We, unfortunately, have had that 0.5 percent" happen, Strock said."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/02/AR2005090202226.\
html
Repairing Levees, Getting the Water Out
As Copters Drop Sand to Fill Breaches, a Police Officer Surveys What's Left
of His Old Neighborhood
By Peter Whoriskey and Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 3, 2005; A21
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 2 -- On the canal's west side, where the levee was intact, a small clutch of gawkers perched on the flood barrier, oohing and aahing as heavy-lift helicopters thudded overhead to drop immense white bags filled with sand into the 300-foot gap that Hurricane Katrina had carved in the opposite flood wall.
On the east side, New Orleans police Officer David Hunter chugged quietly along in his motorboat looking for refugees and pointing out the sights in the Lakeview neighborhood where he once lived. His own house, submerged nearby in 20 feet of water, was "inaccessible," he said.
"But there's my friend Sal's house -- been on the force 30 years." He pointed at a tile rooftop and dodged as a stoplight went by at eye level:
"On the right is the Basin bar. I'd buy you a beer, but I don't think it's open."
This is the epicenter of one of the biggest natural disasters in U.S. history -- an ordinary middle-class New Orleans neighborhood framed by Lake Pontchartrain and the 17th Street Canal, whose levee was breached Monday morning when Katrina's storm surge pushed the lake into the canal until the floodwall gave way.
The Army Corps of Engineers learned that the levee had broken early Monday even as the storm hit, but it was impossible to do anything about it before lake water cascaded unimpeded into the below-sea-level city for 36 hours, turning a really bad storm into an unimaginable abomination. There was no public announcement that the levee had broken until late Monday.
Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, the Corps' commander, told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday that Katrina had simply overpowered levees designed 30 years ago with a 99.5 percent chance of enduring for 200 to 300 years: "We, unfortunately, have had that 0.5 percent" happen, Strock said.
On Friday, the Corps was trying to close the 17th Street breach and another breach at London Avenue to the east. A third break -- two breaks actually -- in the Industrial Canal, were left alone because water levels in the lake and the surrounding wetlands had subsided so much that water was draining out instead of coming in.
Col. Richard P. Wagenaar, the Corps' New Orleans District commander who is the on-site commander at 17th Street, said a police officer called him Monday morning to tell him about the break, but he could not drive there. On Tuesday, the Corps tried to drop some sandbags into the breach, but "it didn't work real well," Wagenaar said. "They were too small, and the water velocity carried them away."
It was better on Friday, but there was a big, deep hole to fill, and the bags -- made to hold 20 tons of sand -- were only carrying five, because the helicopters that arrived every five minutes or so, Black Hawks, Sikorskys and even the Chinooks, could not haul more.
Still, the Corps had a plan. Michael Zumstein, action officer for the Corps' "unwatering team," said the canal had been sealed off from the lake with steel slabs, causing water levels in the canal to drop further. That should eventually make it easier to plug the breach.
While the preferred strategy was to plug the breach and allow the city's pumps to discharge floodwater into the canal, the Corps was also prepared to use emergency pumps to flush directly over the steel dam and into the lake if stopping up the hole proved too difficult.
Zumstein said engineers were using the same strategy at a 250-foot breach in the London Avenue Canal, where they were closing the canal mouth even as they tried to stopper the hole: "They're tearing up Lakeshore Drive and using the concrete as fill," Zumstein said.
Elsewhere, flood teams were taking advantage of the fact that the city is divided by internal levees and floodwalls into 13 "sub-basins" with their own drainage systems and pumping stations -- like separate basements withtheir own sump pumps.
Walter Baumy Jr., engineering chief for the Corps' New Orleans District, said water levels in the lake had subsided by mid-afternoon Friday to within a foot of normal levels, and "when the water inside the bowl is higher than the lake level, we want to drain the water out of the bowl as much as possible."
Baumy said engineers planned to cut new breaches, or "notches" in levees elsewhere in the city, creating makeshift gutters in flooded areas to let water leak out. "We'll see an immediate improvement," he predicted.
But none of this was likely to help David Hunter any time soon. He is 47 -- a mounted officer in the French Quarter who had been planning to file his retirement papers the morning the storm hit: "But I wouldn't be much of a man if I left now. I couldn't live with myself," he said. So he cruises the neighborhood, looking for somebody to help, hoping that no one has died.
There are no fish swimming in Lakeview, and no bayou alligators, he said. The water bubbles with natural gas from broken mains and carries the detritus of a neighborhood to and fro. One neighbor refused to evacuate, and
Hunter hasn't seen him. Still, he added, he hasn't found any corpses. At the Basin bar, "we'd sit there and solve all the world's problems, but with this, I just don't know where to begin," Hunter said. "I don't know if this city will ever come back."
Gugliotta reported from Washington. Staff writer Bradley Graham contributed to this report.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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