We read this post
at Shakespeare's Sister last night, at which point we hit the emotional
wall and decided to go to bed. This morning, our first thoughts
returned to this story,
and we've decided to post the links and a few snips. We highly
recommend that you jump over to Shakes Sis's place to read her entire
take, which is excellent as always.
Thousands of refugees of Hurricane Katrina were transported
to the Astrodome in Houston this week. In an extreme act of looting,
one group actually stole a bus to escape ravaged areas in Louisiana.
About
100 people packed into the stolen bus. They were the first to enter the
Houston Astrodome, but they weren't exactly welcomed.
The big
yellow school bus wasn't expected or approved to pass through the
stadium's gates. Randy Nathan, who was on the bus, said they were
desperate to get out of town.
"If it weren't for him right there," he said, "we'd still be in New Orleans underwater. He got the bus for us."
Eighteen-year-old Jabbor Gibson jumped aboard the bus as it sat abandoned on a street in New Orleans and took control.
"I just took the bus and drove all the way here...seven hours straight,' Gibson admitted. "I hadn't ever drove a bus."
The teen packed it full of complete strangers and drove to Houston. He beat thousands of evacuees slated to arrive there.
[....]
Authorities
eventually allowed the renegade passengers inside the dome. But the
18-year-old who ensured their safety could find himself in a world of
trouble for stealing the school bus.
"I don't care if I get blamed for it ," Gibson said, "as long as I saved my people."
They (Channel 5, not Shakes Sis) are referring to Jabbor's heroic
action as an act of "extreme looting"? This kid single-handedly saved a
hundred of his fellow citizens -- not to mention saving the damned bus -- and they're threatening to charge him with theft?
What
the hell happened to our country, what are people more concerned about, property or people? This kid should be flown to the White
House, he should be given a medal, he should be given the keys to the
city... and then he should be given Cherthoff's job, since that bag of
gas has done nothing but lie and equivocate since the storm hit. We need someone in charge who isn't afraid to take action. Someone like Jabbor Gibson.
And Charlie at Shades of Grey has a related thought,
based on FEMA Director Michael Brown's asinine comment that New Orleans
residents who chose not to heed warnings to evacuate before Hurricane
Katrina bear some responsibility for their fates.
Let's say a family did
just up and leave. What now? Do you suppose the Astrodome is taking
just anybody who shows up at the door and says, Hey, I was in New
Orleans last Saturday, but now I don't have a home? Or do you think
that they're probably only taking the people who come from officially
sanctioned channels?
Looks like Charlie's right. Because
they weren't expected, the "renegade passengers" were denied entry
until they eventually convinced authorities to let them in.
And how on earth are people who take responsibility for their own fates, as Brown suggested they'd need to do, renegades?
I
guess that's the same kind of circular logic that allows Bush's
supporters to defend the length of time it's taken to get people
evacuated because "no one saw it coming," but also condemn the people
who didn't leave because "they knew it was coming."
On Sunday, DHS chief Michael Chertoff told "Meet the Press's" Tim
Russert that one reason for the delay in getting federal aid to Katrina
victims was that "everyone" thought the crisis had passed when the
storm left: "I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I
saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged The Bullet.'" We're wondering what
papers the Chertoff household gets, because these are the headlines
that greeted most people Tuesday morning:
The Newseum has over 400 frontpages archived but we suspect that the
one with the "New Orleans Dodged The Bullet" headline exists primarily in
Chertoff's mind.
Obviously the full story of FEMA's response to Hurricane Katrina
won't be written for months, but Peter Gosselin and Alan Miller tell at
least part of the story today in the LA Times. First, there's the organization of FEMA itself:
The
agency's core budget, which includes disaster preparedness and
mitigation, has been cut each year since it was absorbed by the
Homeland Security Department in 2003. Depending on what the final
numbers end up being for next fiscal year, the cuts will have been
between about 2% and 18%.
The agency's staff has been reduced by 500 positions to 4,735. Among
the results, FEMA has had to cut one of its three emergency management
teams, which are charged with overseeing relief efforts in a disaster.
Where it once had "red," "white" and "blue" teams, it now has only red
and white.
...."They've taken emergency management away from the emergency
managers," complained Morrie Goodman, who was FEMA's chief spokesman
during the Clinton administration. "These operations are being run by
people who are amateurs at what they are doing."
Second, there's FEMA's attempts to shift blame to state and local authorities:
Under
the law, [Homeland Security Secretary Michael] Chertoff said, state and
local officials must direct initial emergency operations. "The federal
government comes in and supports those officials," he said.
Chertoff's remarks, which echoed earlier statements by President
Bush, prompted withering rebukes both from former senior FEMA staffers
and outside experts.
"They can't do that," former agency chief of staff Jane Bullock said
of Bush administration efforts to shift responsibility away from
Washington. "The moment the president declared a federal disaster, it
became a federal responsibility....The federal government took
ownership over the response," she said. Bush declared a disaster in
Louisiana and Mississippi when the storm hit a week ago.
What the declaration says is that the federal government, through FEMA,
assumes responsibility for organizing and controlling the response.
It's like when the feds take over a crime scene in all those Law &
Order episodes. It was retroactive to August 26.
"What's awe-inspiring here is how many federal officials didn't
issue any orders," said Paul C. Light, an authority on government
operations at New York University.
The Administration keeps blaming Louisiana officials for the fuckup. There's an easy way to test this: how's FEMA's response in Mississippi?
Did they have stuff pre-positioned in Jackson? Were they there on
Tuesday, distributing truckloads of food and water and setting up tent
cities? Or were they just as slow there as in Louisiana?
FEMA, meanwhile, has refused to release 50 trucks carrying water
and ice sitting at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny
DuPree said [Sunday].
"They're sitting down there right now because one person from FEMA won't make the call to say, 'Release those trucks,'" he said.
Two-thirds of the residents of the southern Mississippi city have
no power, and that figure was 100 percent for three-and-a-half days, he
added.
He said FEMA representatives did not arrive in Hattiesburg -- 95 miles from New Orleans -- until Saturday.
One more bit of Administration BS bites the dust.
From today's New York Times: The Rove-directed spin machine
snaps into action to contain the political damage. What a pity Karl
Rove wasn't in charge of the relief efforts for New Orleans.
"Under the command of President Bush's two senior political
advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain the
political damage from the administration's response to Hurricane
Katrina."
"It orchestrated visits by cabinet members to the region, leading
up to an extraordinary return visit by Mr. Bush planned for Monday,
directed administration officials not to respond to attacks from
Democrats on the relief efforts, and sought to move the blame for the
slow response to Louisiana state officials, according to Republicans
familiar with the White House plan.
"The effort is being directed by Mr. Bush's chief political
adviser, Karl Rove, and his communications director, Dan Bartlett. It
began late last week after Congressional Republicans called White House
officials to register alarm about what they saw as a feeble response by
Mr. Bush to the hurricane, according to Republican Congressional aides."
So first they tried to blame the victims, but after a couple of "they
didn't chose to evacuate" quotes, they rapidly realized that wasn't
going to fly. Now
they're trying to blame the local (democratic) leadership. This may
work, but they may overplay their hand if they start blaming people
like that Parish president who broke down on MTP today. As he said,
they kept telling us the calvary was coming but they never came.So if
that doesn't work, who is next? The Liberal Media? Michale Moore?
Cindy Sheehan? Oh, oh, I know -- its BLOGGER ETHICS that are to blame!
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