I don't remember seeing you down there.
That cop and I had an encounter the first night we got there. Next day, too, when we were gving our licenses to the RC. He was most helpful, appreciative, and nice. Only put his game face on when FEMA made him do it.
Had the events at the Convention Center and the Superdome not occurred
Had a frog not lost its wings, it wouldn't have bumped its ass when it jumped. If the La. Guard wasn't in Iraq wth their high water vehicles,...
By the time FEMA figured it out,I was thru throwing shoes at my TV and was looking for a ride down there.
Michael Brown
FEMA Director Michael Brown was criticized when he stated that he was not aware there were refugees in the Convention Center until September 1, three days after Hurricane Katrina hit, when Williams asked Brown a question about them live on the Nightly News.[39]
On September 2, CNN's Soledad O'Brien asked FEMA Director Mike Brown, "How is it possible that we're getting better info than you were getting... we were showing live pictures of the people outside the Convention Center... also we'd been reporting that officials had been telling people to go to the Convention Center... I don't understand how FEMA cannot have this information." When pressed, Brown reluctantly admitted he had learned about the starving crowds at the Convention Center from news media reports. O'Brien then said to Brown, "FEMA's been on the ground four days, going into the fifth day, why no massive air drop of food and water... in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, they got food drops two days after the tsunami."[40]
...
Due to the slow response by the federal government to the hurricane, New Orleans's top emergency management official called the effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly desperate city.[9] New Orleans's emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). "This is not a FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy", he said. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."[9] At the time, the main staging area was only 6 miles away along the adjoining I-10 at the Causeway intersection, and FEMA had apparently been at the Superdome three days earlier....
White House and homeland security officials wouldn't explain why Chertoff waited some 36 hours to declare Katrina an incident of national significance and why he didn't immediately begin to direct the federal response from the moment on Aug. 27 when the National Hurricane Center predicted that Katrina would strike the Gulf Coast with catastrophic force in 48 hours. Nor would they explain why Bush felt the need to appoint a separate task force.
Chertoff's hesitation and Bush's creation of a task force both appear to contradict the National Response Plan and previous presidential directives that specify what the secretary of homeland security is assigned to do without further presidential orders. The goal of the National Response Plan is to provide a streamlined framework for swiftly delivering federal assistance when a disaster – caused by terrorists or Mother Nature – is too big for local officials to handle.[28]
...
Federal Emergency Management Agency
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was heavily criticized in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, primarily for its slow response and inability to coordinate its efforts with other federal agencies relief organizations. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, said of the slow Federal response, "I was shocked. We are ready to provide considerably more help than they have requested. We are just waiting for the call. I don't want to sit here and all of a sudden we are all going to be political. Just get it done."[29]
FEMA was accused of deliberately slowing things down, in an effort to ensure that all assistance and relief workers were coordinated properly. For example, Michael D. Brown, the head of FEMA, on August 29, urged all fire and emergency services departments not to respond to counties and states affected by Hurricane Katrina without being requested and lawfully dispatched by state and local authorities under mutual aid agreements and the Emergency Management Assistance Compact.[30]
FEMA also interfered in the Astor Hotel's' plans to hire 10 buses to carry approximately 500 guests to higher ground. Federal officials commandeered the buses, and told the guests to join thousands of other evacuees at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.[31] In other instances of FEMA asserting its authority to only ultimately make things worse, FEMA officials turned away three Wal-Mart trailer trucks loaded with water, prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the Jefferson Parish emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA.[32] The Wal-Mart delivery had actually been turned away a week earlier, on Sunday, August 28, before the hurricane struck. A caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers was reported in New Orleans by September 1.[33] Additionally, more than 50 civilian aircraft responding to separate requests for evacuations from hospitals and other agencies swarmed to the area a day after Katrina hit, but FEMA blocked their efforts. Aircraft operators complained that FEMA waved off a number of evacuation attempts, saying the rescuers were not authorized. "Many planes and helicopters simply sat idle," said Thomas Judge, president of the Assn. of Air Medical Services.[34]
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