Wednesday, September 7, 2005
It's time for accountability
(snip)
It is past time for some accountability.
FEMA operatives took charge in New Orleans almost immediately. Some of their actions, however, raise serious questions.
Wal-Mart, according to Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, loaded three trucks with food and water. FEMA, which controlled access to New Orleans, turned them back. A Coast Guard ship invited local authorities to get 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, but FEMA ordered it to rescind the offer. Volunteers from Lafayette, La., with 500 boats, headed for New Orleans to aid in rescue efforts, but FEMA turned them back. Firefighters from Houston, Maryland and elsewhere were turned away by FEMA or assigned to PR work.
This is not to say state and local officials are blameless. New Orleans had an evacuation plan involving enough school and transit buses to evacuate 12,000 people per run, but Mayor Ray Nagin did not use them. State and local authorities kept the Red Cross out of New Orleans in the first days after Katrina.
The FEMA mistakes appear to be due to incompetence, a surprisingly lackadaisical attitude and the slowness with which large government bureaucracies typically make decisions and start acting. It won't solve all those problems, some of which may be endemic to government, but President Bush should make some changes at the top.
(snip)
As much as President Bush values loyalty, it is time, as the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper has urged, to fire Mr. Brown and replace him with someone with experience dealing with large-scale events, who knows how to work with state, local and private-sector volunteers, and can motivate FEMA to get its act together.
http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/2005/09/07/sections/commentary/commentary/article_664274.php