What went WRONG in NEW ORLEANS?

Question

Which level of government do you think was responsible for what went wrong in New Orleans?

(federal, state, and local officials)

Answer 1

Disaster response is a responsibility of state government.  The state governor is the official in charge and the constitution says it has to stay that way unless the area is in a "state of insurrection".  It basically takes a civil war or revolution to allow the federal government to take legal authority for disaster response away from the state governor.

In the case of Louisiana and Hurricane Katrina that governor was Kathleen Blanco. She apparently became unbalanced by the catastrophe and her own staff began calling her "Governor Blank Stare" during the first week of the crisis.  Among other failures, she refused a request (on August 30th) from President Bush to "federalize" the emergency, which would have allowed regular military forces to be used for rescue operations.  Instead, she sat on her hands and the FIRST National Guard convoy wasn't sent to New Orleans until five days after Katrina struck. At least 1300 people died, even though it was possible to drive from Baton Rouge to New Orleans by ordinary car as soon as the winds abated on August 29th.

The corrupt and incompetent city government was a factor, but - to be fair - even an honest and competent city government would have been overwhelmed by a disaster like Katrina.

Note that FEMA is not a first response agency.  It is basically the federal government's mechanism for disbursing funds for emergency response.

Answer 2

No level of government, it was the lazy people. Of course Mayor Chocolate didn't help by spending the levee money on stupid programs.

Answer 3

there is no oil in New Orleans.

Answer 4

federal gov for not implementing WEATHER CONTROL!!!

this is the 21st Century dammit!!!!

Answer 5

It's mostly the federal government's fault. FEMA is taking most of the blame, and should be. However, I think Bush and Co. could have done a much better job as well. The state wasn't great either. The city could have done better, but looking at what everyone else did, they did their job better than anyone else. Besides, No one besides FEMA is trained specifically for these situations. They should be the ones who know what to do in this situation, not the ones who know everything there is to know about Arabian Horses.

Answer 6

All of the above........

Answer 7

The coordination between all levels of government was very poor.

The funds for the levees were diverted, that was a state/local problem.

The response by state and local authorities to the federal warnings was unconscientously delayed, which contributed to the deaths and lack of preparation at the time.

Answer 8

in this order: local, then state then federal.  NO re-elected nagin so they got what the deserved.  he has become rich from all the graft and corruption there.  i think this could not have happened in any other city in the USA...wait...it didn't.

there was money allocated to fix the levees but it was not used for that..they were ordered to evacuate, they didn't, they had hundreds of school buses under water that could have been used to evacuate those without transportation all this lays at the feet of nagin...what happened after was the governor's fault then the feds.

<edit> the poster above me said it too...they just sat and waited for someone else to do something.  they share the blame also, and for those who's greed and corruption took money they knew they had no claim to receive.

Answer 9

The failures in New Orleans started long before Hurricane Katrina.

The Army Corps of Engineers submitted plans to install flood control gates on Lake Ponchartrain (sp?) that were similar to those on the dikes of Holland.  This was challenged by environmentalists in court and a liberal judge appointed by Jimmy Carter ruled in favor of the eco-geeks and the gates were not built ...

Next, the A.C. of E. proposed strengthening the levees protecting the low-lying parts of the City from anything up to a Category 5 Hurricane.  Once again - the eco-geeks took it to a liberal court and the work was not done ....

Do you detect a pattern here?

Money was given to the state by the federal government for the repair of the levees that were deteriorating, but somehow the money never found it's way to be used for that which it was intended ...

Next step.  Keep in mind that the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans have been governed by liberal Democrats for longer than most of us have been alive.  This "people's paradise" of social programs and government largess had created a mentality among a great deal of it's citizenry that the government should do everything for them, and they didn't need to worry about doing anything for themselves.  So when Katrina became a threat that could no longer be ignored, most of the people living on the governments generosity, who just happened to be living in the poorer parts of town, which just happened to be in the lowest areas protected by the levees, mostly sat around waiting for the government to come and get them instead of taking some initiative to save themselves.

The City failed them by not using school buses to evacuate those who needed transportation.  The buses became flooded and useless.  The City had failed to prepare shelters for those that would become homeless during a levee failure and most of them ended up in the Superdome with inadequate food, water, and medical care.

The State failed by not calling up the National Guard before the storm hit to aid in evacuation.  By the time the National Guard was ready, the flood had already occured and it turned into a rescue operation.  That's when you got people like Representative William J. Jefferson (D-La) appropriating NG trucks to retrieve his bribe money from the freezer of his home, instead of the trucks being used for victim rescue.

That's when you got the mainstream media, instead of helping the situation by reporting the facts of the matter, creating panic by reporting false stories of murders in the Superdome and other events that just DIDN'T happen!

FEMA is a RESPONSE organization.  They CANNOT come to an emergency until requested by local authorities.  The State and Local governments of Lousiana delayed calling FEMA until long after it should have been done.

FEMA's response was inept, uncoordinated and left much to be desired.  With the money given to them for this kind of work, the taxpayers should receive much better responses to emergency situations than they did.

So where does the blame lie?  I'd say about 75% with the eco-geeks that prevented the A.C. of E. from performing the work that was needed to protect New Orleans from what happened.  Then about 15% with the local and state government for their own ineptness in preparations.  And about 10% with FEMA for their inadequate response.

And who would be responsible if it happened again?  100% on the fools that are rebuilding a major city BELOW sea level and wasting our money to do it!!

Answer 10

The voters were most responsible.

They kept electing people who were corrupt.

They still are.

There needs to be a process by which officials suspected of being corrupt are held to a higher standard and removed from office and replaced with others.

The city had developed a disaster plan ... what to do in an emergency ... the city officials ignored ti, they acted ignorant that such a plan existed.  Is that corruption or incompetence?

There needs to be a process wherebye officials suspected of incompetence can be identified, investigated, removed from office.

Instead, many of these same leaders are very popular, and elected again and again, when there is clear evidence of corruption and incompetence.

Now New Orleans was built below sea level.

What kind of brains are involved in doing that?

The people knew it, and chose to live there anyway.

What kind of brains to do that?

It is no coincidence that the US Census found that the people who live in New Orleans are among the poorest in the nation.  Anyone with any money has enough good sense to go live somewhere else.

I suggest you read up on Hurricane Pam.

This was a simulation that occurred an entire year before Katrina.  It predicted exactly what happened in Katrina.  At the conclusion of Pam, there were reccommendations what had to be done to prevent disaster.  Now the wheels of government can move exceedingly slowly, decades, centuries, when for disaster prevention we need something closer to Internet speed.

This is not unusual ... look at the 9/11 commission report ... they gave a list of things that needed to be done to prevent that happening again ... a very few of them got done, and it took YEARS ... the odds are that we will have several more 9/11 happen before all the reccommendations get implemented.

There were hundreds of government studies before 9/11 that talked about threats to our infrastructure, like 9/11 and what needed to be done.  One of them came out about 6 months before 9/11 and Congress debated some changes to make terrorist hijackings more difficult to be done, but the airline industry successfully lobbied against that on the grounds that more airline security would be catastrophically expensive and no assurance it would work.

Well after 9/11 we have seen that come true.  We are pouring huge amounts of money into air security, and we continue to have problems there.

Answer 11

Democrats in control.

Answer 12

Try and knock and ask Leviticus.

The answers is waiting out there.

Read the riddles and see the analogy out there.

Answer 13

local officials sat on their lazy asses and did absolutely nothing BEFORE the storm so that they COULD have better prepared everyone to EVACUATE!!!

I remember seeing news photos taken from a helicopter of a large parking lot full of school buses left unused to EVACUATE citizens.    WHY????    Ray Nagin said he wanted his people to leave the city in "style" meaning on buses that had air conditioning.     Now thousands are dead simply because Ray Nagin is an IDIOT!!!!    Yet, the people of New Orleans RE ELECTED HIM!!!  



If you ask me they got what they deserved by having that moron as their mayor.

Answer 14

The level of government that fell through the worst was the one right inside of each home!

Each person is responsible to take care of himself as much as possible. The International and American Red Cross daily deal with people who didn't listen when urged to prepare for emergencies, and then refused to evacuate when they needed to.

There were many people who sadly died for no other reason than that they were waiting for "the government" to take care of them.

Having said that, Federal Regulations forbid FEMA from stepping in until the state and local agencies have done certain things. In fact, the actions of the federal agencies who overstepped the state's area of responsibility in Louisiana had to have authorization from Washington DC before they could do anything. This happened because Louisiana's state and local governments were unprepared and complacent about the hurricane until it was too late.

Answer 15

Depends on your meaning. The flooding? That was just the basic government not doing its job fixing the levees. The local gov didn't have a good plan. Then the state's governor would allow Bush to get the national guard into the state. Then Bush's boy did a awful job and was fired. This is way you cannot ever trust the government to help you in a disaster.

So every level failed, and the scope was so wide spreed we where caught with our pants down. Plus the amount of time it took to send in the guard takes about 48 hrs. In hurricane areas you are told to always expected to be on your own for at least 5 days.

Answer 16

As I read through the answers I'm amazed by the responses.  Why don't the citizen's get any blame?  They were told a storm was coming and yet they stayed.  How is this not the problem?

Answer 17

Initial response = Local

48 Hour response = State

Long term = Feds

In this case a Dem failed then another Dem failed and finally a Rep had to step in.

Answer 18

Every thing went wrong for a very long time prior to Katrina.

For the past 60 years, the Army Corps of Engineers has engaged in policies which actually made New Orleans less safe from a Hurricane.  (While some plans may have failed in court, other plans never got off the ground for budgetary reasons, and there is no evidence that any of these would have made a difference in light of the receding coast lines).

After 9/11, all previous emergency response plans were essentially trashed by FEMA requiring state and local agencies to come up with new plans without the time to fully implement them.

FEMA refused to respond to initial requests and did not believe that flooding was occurring.  

And state and local officials did not have a good plan in place for something like this happening.

Answer 19

You have just answered the question of why the United States cannot afford national health care.,

Government is inept and always will be.,

But when 125 mile an hour winds are coming and bringing rain and tornado's and flooding I'd be smart enough to get out of  the way especially if I lived below sea level,



Dee dee dee

Answer 20

All of the above !!

Answer 21

Locals - the people of NO for not evacuating quickly enough and heeding warnings.

The city for lack of storm shelters, adequate dams and levies, and for not having enough buses to transport the people out.  

The Feds for failing to react in a timely manner to the needs of the citizens after being reported by the state.

Answer 22

President

Answer 23

local officials and personal attitudes and grandiose expectations

Answer 24

whichever one decided to build and then rebuild a city below sea level

Answer 25

Federal Government.  For major disasters in this nation, Americans have always counted on the assistance of the whole country to help out.  No locality has the resources to manage a disaster of those proportions.

Answer 26

Each and every level of government failed New Orleans.  How anyone could reelect the mayor of New Orleans, the governor of Louisiana, or still support the Bush administration after the lack of preparedness and organization after Katrina, I will never know.

That being said, this should be a great signal to all Americans, especially the poor.  No one is going to hold your hand anymore.  Prepare yourself as best as you can for future disasters.  They will come, whether it's a hurricane or a terrorist attack...you must be responsible for yourself.  There is no guarantee the government will protect you.

Answer 27

FEMA DID NOT RESPOND IN TIME.