hate to bust all the white cracker trump voter snot bubbles, but once a federal disaster is claimed, the local folks have no more control, or the state, it is on FEMA to call the shots, to direct the action, to determine any forced evacuations. and that fell upon Brownie, former horse show judge. i know you would rather blame a black guy, or a democrat, and never some rich former horse show judge that should never have been given such an important job, but then again, you are bigoted trump voters, it is what we expect from you.
Louisiana declares state of emergency as storm develops into ...
https://www.theguardian.com/us.../mississippi-river-levees-new-orleans-rain-flooding
Louisiana declares state of emergency as storm develops into hurricane. Louisiana on Wednesday declared a state of emergency as a storm in the Gulf of Mexico was fast developing into a category 1 hurricane and spinning towards the Louisiana coast.
The planning
Before Hurricane Katrina struck, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) was confident that it was ready. Its director, Michael Brown, said: "Fema has pre-positioned many assets including ice, water, food and rescue teams to move into the stricken areas as soon as it is safe to do so."
Mr Brown even told the Associated Press news agency that the evacuation had gone well. "I was impressed with the evacuation, once it was ordered it was very smooth," he said.
Yet on
Saturday 28 August, the day before the evacuation was ordered, Mr Brown did not say that people should leave the city. All he said was:
"There's still time to take action now, but you must be prepared and take shelter and other emergency precautions immediately."
This has made Fema appear complacent in the period immediately before the hurricane arrived. If it did not expect the worst, it would not have prepared for the worst.
The Brown statement went out on the same day that the National Hurricane Center was warning that Katrina was strengthening to the top Category Five. (In fact I have double checked this and find that on the Saturday evening the forecast was for a strengthening to Category Four. It went up to Five on Sunday. But the point remains -- the danger was there. The difference between a Four and a Five is the difference between being hit by a truck and a train.) A Fema exercise last year called "Hurricane Pam" had looked at a Category Three, and that was bad enough.
The relief operation
The scenes which most shocked the world were at the Superdome and the Convention Center. Yet it turns out that neither Mr Brown nor his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, knew about the crisis at the Center until Thursday. And they should have known about the Superdome all along as it was the designated shelter.
This, despite numerous television reports from the scene. It was not until Friday that the first relief convoy arrived.
"It was midday Tuesday that I became aware of the fact that there was no possibility of plugging the gap, and that essentially the lake was going to drain into the city," Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security Secretary said.
"The very day that this emerged in the press, I was on a video conference with all the officials, including state and local officials. And nobody, none of the state and local officials or anybody else, was talking about a Convention Center," Chertoff told CNN.
Note how he blames local officials when by law, once the state asks for federal emergency disaster relief, FEMA/Homeland Security have full authority.
Nor did he know about the significance of the breach in the floodwalls until a day later.
"It was midday Tuesday that I became aware of the fact that there was no possibility of plugging the gap, and that essentially the lake was going to drain into the city," he said on NBC.
But ironically the failure at the Convention Center would have been fairly easy to put right. Reporters drove there without problems. One took a taxi.